Devilry
by aragonite
Summary: Bridge of Unspoken Water, Part 2-Tombstone Tears. A young Constable finds that at times, the most peculiar cases will find you.
1. Chapter 1

Devilry

_A series of slightly-darker fics for...let's just say a person who has very good cause to ask a favor of me. Here's hoping they enjoy themselves, because I'm determined to give them what they ask for.._.

The little bookseller died at dawn.

It was Murcher's beat; the big man got a little stuffed-up in his voice when he relayed the news. No fault to him. Hardly anyone could remember not seeing the wizened-up little figure scuttling back and forth the busy streets of London.

"Plato!" He would insist upon a poor, bewildered student from the University. With his rough, croaking voice he might have been a black-clad frog hopping around the tall, young, straight and unwary quarry. "The Classics must be appreciated by such a fine gentleman such as yourself!" Or, upon spying a tired-looking cutter coming out of Bart's..."Galen! Surely you cannot pretend to be a student of your Art, sir, your Medical Art, without learning of your forefathers!" And despite the fact that a cutter's chance for advancement was rife against his station...the man would find himself buying the book in trade for a moment's peace. And who was to say how he benefited from it? The old man had an instinct for knowing the secret hungers that walked around him.

Lestrade had fallen victim himself, once or twice. Unlike Gregson, who could be cozened into a fancy dictionary, Lestrade merely wanted to know more of the law and its changing nature. Some of the books he'd bought off the street were still unfinished; heavy, hearty stuff with pithy contents needing the attention of one chapter a night. But he had bought them, and, buyer beware, Lestrade had never allowed himself to regret his side of the bargain.

He was poor, they all knew. He had a stall, if one could call it that; a costermonger's little get-up and painted with so many layers of mahogany varnish it must have been proof against the thought of rain or snow and wind…he took better care of his little cart than he did himself; he was always cleaning it when he was on the kerb, muttering to himself in strange little snatches of foreign languages. He was a familiar sight to nearly everyone throughout London.

Lestrade had been there when Murcher made the call; had been on his way to crossing the street at the sound of the whistle. That quickly, his breakfast was diverted and he was one of the people drawing to the big Constable…the difference being he was supposed to be there. His heart began to sink at the little glimpses of shrunken black form through the crowd Murcher was swatting back like horseflies. The corner of the little portable stall protruded from behind his blue coat-tails. At the hunched-over little form inside his battered black frock-coat, with the blue veins shrunken into his dry hands, Lestrade felt the descent complete.

"He seemed fine enough when I walked past him," Murcher nodded and touched his thick fingers to the brim of his helmet. The crowd took the cue, and scattered. Lestrade and Murcher ignored how they moved slowly, as if to prove they weren't intimidated. "Just a little tired. I asked how he 'uz, and he croaked, "sufficient today is the evil thereof."

"Sounds just like him." Lestrade knelt carefully on the rim of the street, and tilted the slumped head that was resting on the hollow chest. What he saw was all too-familiar, even if he hadn't seen the dark, glimmering track of death through the thin white hair running down and behind the stained collar. The frail old head, scarcely more than the three pounds or so it was supposed to weigh, was even heavier in death as it wobbled on the neck. The light grey eyes were already clouding over.

Atheists were strange folk, the Inspector thought and not for the first time. How could anyone witness the change from life to death, especially in the eyes, not believe in the immortal soul?

"Looks like a burst vessel, straight enough…" The quickness of the death was offset by the appearance one left behind. The Inspector quietly leaned the head back and with Murcher's help, stretched the old man's body upon its back. The pooling blood had already suffused the face behind and around the white side-whiskers with an unpleasant plum-like tint, and made a slight swelling where the wrinkles sunk into the face. It was difficult to make the body rest supine; perhaps the rumors were true, and he really had broken his back in the past. Lestrade doubted he really had handicapped himself in a coal-mine. Miners didn't have time to read.

There was nothing in the way of dead-filth, just the usual filth of the living upon the clothing. Lestrade wondered how many rag-shop vendors had given the old man the clothing he wore. It was nosy, and he felt guilty, like a peeping Tom, but it was inevitable to wonder. The cream-coloured shirt had been beautiful silk once. The collar atop the shirt had belonged to an earlier age. The cuffs had been too large for those thin wrists. The cufflinks were cheap, but cunningly fashioned of tiny polished acorns. What the Inspector could see of the waistcoat was a rusty wool, only barely dark enough to match the street-battered black wool.

"Wonder when he last et?" Murcher was asking.

Lestrade shrugged. "He always went to Brucie's for bread and tea in the evening. Someone ought to tell him…where was he seen last?"

"He was sniggling eels under the Bridge yesterday."

"I'm betting you that's where he set up for the night."

"Lord, I hope not, sir. The wind coming off the Thames was fierce last night."

"It usually is, this time of year, but two old men would choose it if it meant less chance of being preyed on."

It always took long enough for the dead-cart. Lestrade folded the scrawny hands across the chest anyway. No sense wasting time. He didn't know if there were provisions set aside, or anything in the way of possessions outside the cart. Brucie ought to be told. Another harmless old soul that even the cutthroats ignored out of whatever decency they might posses...or perhaps even they knew there was nothing worth killing for inside those old coats.

Another piece of London just died, he thought. He'd seen the old bookseller for years—even in his early days on the beat and he'd looked old even then. His hair had been white; he had scuttled across the city with his cart and his books strapped to his shoulders. When a building was about to be demolished, he was there. When something crumbled and was thrown out into the rubbish…he was there too. He ignored the brass fixtures, the antique brick, anything else of value…it had been the books he wanted to salvage. It was the books he pulled out of the rubbish, lovingly dusted them off, and repaired their pages well as he could. He read every book he sold, and recited large bits from his memory when persuading a sot to buy. He took pricier volumes to antique and reliquary shops, persuaded them of the use of his time, and walked off (if temporary in his wealth), better than he'd been earlier.

No different from the mudlarks and street-Arabs who knew a good deal in the tip when they saw it…and how many times did the respectable establishments rely on these bitterly poor people to find a crowning piece for their display?

Lestrade once, in his salad days, took him for some sort of beggar trying to nick a few coins on the pretext of a book. But Old Leathersides, the wags off Lambeth said, Old Leathersides had loved his books too much. When he saw someone worthy of his wares, he pressed upon them and harried them with his good intentions until they crumbled to soggy sand and took up the book.

"He's rooked Mr. Holmes a time or two," Gregson had commented once. "Then again, maybe he didn't. Holmes is a queer enough bird…could be he can find sense in spending money on a book written in a language England's never seen, and bound in a country we can't even spell."

_Can't even spell…_

Lestrade thought of that then, without knowing why. Possibly because he knew English and was uncomfortable with all other tongues…but it seemed very wrong for someone to master more than one language…and not be given honours…at least a soft bed and a good meal once a day. What use was education if it wasn't respected? Old Leathersides had conversed to him in what he'd said was Hebrew, Greek, Latin…and even more strangely, spoke of books the Inspector hadn't imagination to conjure by himself. He hadn't belonged on the streets of the homeless any more than the rest. Who had taught him?

Murcher was clearing his throat as Lestrade quietly went through his pockets. A pawn-ticket for a bottle of preservative oils. A silk handkerchief, given better care than the rest of his clothing. A broken watch with an ivory back and a deer leaping across a carved wood. A single piece of jewelry hung at his watch-chain: A finely carved cameo of polished sea-coal, of a young woman with eyes too large and haunting to speak of health.

"A city of millions…_millions_…with millions of those dedicated to crime…and he manages to die of natural causes."

"Seems to me, sir…any death in London is a natural cause." Murcher answered softly--and with not a small grain of truth to his observation.

Lestrade looked up at that, and years later, he still didn't know what he was about to say to the man—something stern yet encouraging, something a superior would say to bolster up a man in a gruff, no-frills way…but all that went to pieces at the sight of a tall, thin man striding through the crowd with his walking-stick like a third arm.

One look at the look on Mr. Holmes' thin face, and Lestrade felt something; his heart sunk to a previously new station below his ribs.

"Lestrade," Mr. Holmes begin with a high, quick catch to his voice (usually so capable of slicing a man through with a single look, a single eyeball of a look, or the lift of a nostril…even the way that starving amateur could put his pipe to his lips could be an insult or condemnation)…

"Good-morning, Mr. Holmes." Lestrade slowly rose to his feet; he'd stayed put for too long, and his foot ached like a living thing was in his shoe…with teeth that wanted sharpening on the thick bone under his arch. "I'm afraid Mr. Leathersides passed away just now."

"I can see that, Lestrade."

Too late, Lestrade realised he had accidentally caused insult. Of course that man, who had loved books (especially books of every method of murder or suicide known), would be able to see at a glance the bookseller had died on his own.

There was nothing for it now. An apology would mean nothing to Holmes, assuming he would even be paying attention.

With a single swoop (birdlike, he could be, and bloodhoundish at a puzzle), Holmes dropped to his knees with far less concern for his trousers than Lestrade…but to be fair, Holmes didn't have to worry about his superior's censure…Holmes acknowledged no superiors.

The horses were pulling up the dead-cart now. Lestrade knew he was being old-fashioned, but he still couldn't call it anything but that. Carts for the dead; carriages were for the living.

"He had some books for me…"

Lestrade didn't like seeing Mr. Holmes shaken up and taken aback. He far preferred the man to be what he was supposed to be: annoying, arrogant, and smug and vague and everything a policeman wasn't supposed to be. Not a man who had a foundation shaken before he was ready.

"If you can recognize them in the stack, Mr. Holmes, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded…"

Those unsettling grey eyes. Lestrade has never gotten used to them.

"And to whom the payment, Inspector?"

The voice is cutting as always. Thank God. Holmes wanted things back to normal as much as he did.

"He was a mate of the old rag-man Brucie under the Bridge...He had no kin that I was aware of, Mr. Holmes…"

"Nor did he. I'm quite certain of the fact."

Holmes straightened by inches, his tall, skinny form like a lost lighthouse in the swarm of the street. "Again, to whom should the payment go to? I can give Bruce something easily enough, but what of Mr. McDaniel? He never wanted a burial. Not even in a potter's field."

Lestrade didn't bother asking how Holmes knew. his real name or his desires. Book-lovers were their own breed, and they spoke their own language.

"I can't say, Mr. Holmes. Except perhaps that if you truly knew him, you'll be able to think of some way to commemorate him."

Again, Lestrade strikes a nerve without meaning it, but this time it didn't seem to be painful.

Lestrade and Murcher wait, respectfully silent, as Mr. Holmes slowly and quietly pages through the meagre supply of battered books and just as silently…he pulls three out.

"What will happen to his personal effects, Inspector?"

"They'll be put up if no heirs respond in the usual matter of time." Lestrade tells him. Holmes had to be upset if he'd forgotten one of the most basic of London's laws with the poor and deceased.

Holmes nodded at that…and pulled out a handful of coin that surely that Montague-Street-dragon would prefer to see in her own apron. There was a sadness to the way the young man put the money down, as if he was trying to say how heavy it was and how light was life…but before Lestrade could ponder the oddness of his own thoughts, Holmes had turned his back and left them to the business of putting up the husk of a quiet, meek, and harmless man of books.

-

Lestrade let events slip from his mind—it was a necessary quality for an Inspector who must carry many tasks at once. Standing fast was one thing; standing fast in a current would drown a man quick.

But not long after, he stepped to the sausage-cart on his way to work and nearly spat out the mouthful of breakfast into the chilly London air.

Old Leathersides was scuttling across the kerb.

The Inspector stared without shame, almost horrified at his own paralysis. But the vision failed to vanish. It flitted like a bat throughout the crowd, the pile of books belted to one stooped shoulder, a satchel at his waist.

"Dante!" The high, piping and cracked voice exults like the priest on Sundays. "The fine Italian of the Empire! Dear sir, you cannot say your collection of the classics is complete without the Divine Comedy!"

Lestrade stared until his eye hurt, but Mr. Holmes was already gone, and his target was struggling to say no.

He would give in. The Inspector knew that.

Mr. Holmes would wear him down as surely as Old Leathersides. Would inveigle his way to the man's house and there he would find…what? Proof of what crime? Or confirmation of what innocence? The old Bookseller would go off, and whoever had hired Mr. Holmes (perhaps someone even in the Yard, like Gregson)…would get a note on their desk.

He shook his head, admiring and unable to truly disapprove.

Mr. Holmes had been good to his word. He had found a way to remember the old man.

And it was a strangely fitting form of tribute, too.

Mr. Holmes had discovered the perfect disguise.

Men see what they want to see.

No one wants to see a ghost.


	2. Deviling

Deviling

"Damn the papers anyway."

Gregson wadded the offending pages up with a single, powerful wrench of his large hands and the mass went sailing. It hit the dustbin and sank down. This early in the morning, there was nothing to bounce off.

Behind him, Chief Constable Lockhart spared a single glance of patience and shared misery on his way to deliver a stack of photographs of suspected fugitives to the men under his authority.

Still disgusted, Gregson sank his large body into his chair and listened to the wooden pegs squeak. He kicked out restlessly, knowing that he wanted to go outside but the moment he did so, the boiling clouds would choose that same moment to open up.

There were many things the government did not want its visitors—especially important visitors—to know about.

Bethnal Green was possibly three of them all put together.

A door creaked shut from the back, and Lestrade entered with his usual energy—the man's indefatigable reserves made Gregson fairly ill at times. He never seemed to sit down, and you'd hear him scuttling in and out of the Main Office at all hours, no matter what the shifts.

They were rivals, which meant they could tolerate each other to some extent (the shared misery of struggling up the ranks while the remaining 85% of the Metro remained Constables was a strong bond). However, as the years went on and on, Gregson found himself increasingly irritated by Lestrade's inability to slow down. Twenty years in the CID ought to at least put a brake on all that steaming about.

How the man could solve cases primarily on his feet was a source of annoyance, irritation, and occasional spite. A real detective was paid to use his brains. That's what the plainclothes promotion was for.

Gregson's thoughts (he was in a bad mood to begin with, so moving from the blathering press to his only real rival for promotion was natural), paused. He lifted his head up and sniffed. Yes, there was…something amiss.

Gregson might resemble a large, pale, hairless bear, but he had the curiosity of a man with a few cats in his bloodline. Compelled by something completely unknown, he stood up, his senses straining.

The Yard always smelled the same: The wood of the floors and furnishings was polished every night by the charwomen. The brass fixtures cleaned with abrasives…the windows were scrubbed religiously every night with white vinegar and newspaper (he suddenly thought of one good use the paper could be put to, and pulled it out of the dustbin).

The smell of the men and women within the Yard added to the bouquet like a rich stew, which was all the more amazing because it settled within a particular range of notes and never varied; after all, there was only so many different ways a Plod could saturate his wool coat with the yellow fog, or the miasma off the Thames. The men off the East End came back reeking of gin more often than not—and it was usually thrown in their faces by a furious prostitute. There was a clerk in the office who, poor boy, was condemned to reek of ink and machine oil because of his small hands, long fingers, and understanding of the most wretched of office machines—the Hansen Writing Ball.1 Its only virtue was being faster than any human hand could write…but still it was deeply frustrating and Gregson was happy to let others wrestle with it.

The Thames, the streets, and the buildings themselves led to their own scent and it crept through the smallest cracks and fissures in the building, mixed with the smell of the gas-flames and the natural human sweat as well as their attempts to smell sweeter.

Whatever he was smelling was something along the lines of…Gregson filled his lungs to the limit and closed his eyes, thinking. Dehydrated mushrooms…cobwebs…alkaline clay dust…and hay.

His eyes opened. Where in the world would Lestrade be that put him inside a dry basement? For that matter…where in London would there be a dry basement?

This was more interesting than the tripe in the papers.

Gregson pushed out of his office, automatically reached for his cigarette-case and his Dobereiner's Lamp. He rested them in his fingers without putting either to use.

He found Lestrade in his office, moving back and forth from one large stack of piled-up cases (it started on the floor and barely topped the rim of his desk), and the filing cabinet (Gregson didn't know why the Chief only wanted the FINISHED cases safe and sound in the cabinets, but that was what he wanted).

Gregson peered hard with his hard blue eyes. Lestrade had hung his coat up and a wisp of a grey thread—cobweb, aha—clung to one shoulder. And—another point—the little runt's hands were scrubbed so clean they still glowed. Dirty work afoot. Dirty, _dusty_ work, and this time of the year, there really weren't many places a man could be dirty and dry…

Lestrade turned, saw him, and nearly jumped. Gregson enjoyed that and showed it with a grin.

"What is it, Gregson?" Lestrade asked politely enough, and he was right to look suspicious.

"You're in a good mood." Gregson answered indirectly. He put his back to the wall (mindful against getting his hair-cream into the wallpaper), and flicked the lamp. Zinc oxidized with the little tank of sulfuric acid and a jet of hydrogen flame lit his cigarette. He knew Lestrade, who otherwise lived as simply, despised his economical brand of tobacco. "I take it you had a chance to read the papers this morning?"

"Gregson, I haven't looked at anything resembling print since I was nearly run over by a Nestle's Milk taxi!" He spared one last look at Gregson's tools of invasion, and stubbornly pulled out his sweeter-smelling tobacco. Being even more old-fashioned than Gregson, he used a match.

"Bethnal Green's in the news again."

Lestrade sputtered smoke. He coughed and shook out the match with tears in his eyes. "What is it now?" He asked wearily.

"Up-and-coming new journalist wants to prove the Slave Market still exists."

"Still—?" The little man blanched. "The market's never went away…what's this 'still exists' nonsense?"

"You heard me." Gregson waited a moment. "Planning an expose, it looks like."

"This isn't the _Littoral_ at work again, is it?"

"What do you think?" Gregson wanted to know. "I thought you'd better know about it, seeing as how there's always a chance they'll send your friend to the case."

"That overstuffed ottoman isn't my friend. If anything, I'd say he was yours—he praises you often enough."

"Powell is a _littoral_ pain in the neck." Gregson was pleased at his own cleverness, especially because it made Lestrade look a little ill. "So where have you been, Lestrade? Hole in the ground?"

"Almost." Lestrade suddenly looked at his hands as if they still had lingering traces of filth on them.

"Still wasting your time on that Missing Groom?" Gregson shook his head from side to side in pity. "The man's run off, Lestrade."

"Run off to a Better Place," Lestrade narrowed his eyes. "Too many guilty looks in the stables, Gregson. You ought to see it."

"People lie so much they look guilty as soon as we walk into a room." Gregson reminded him with just the right amount of arrogance to annoy Lestrade even further. "I suppose I'll be going down to the Green tomorrow…just to see how much of a bungle the fools are going to make it."

Lestrade grimaced; it was close to a groan. "The Office will be furious if they get themselves shived—even if they deserve it."

"Rich people like to complain." Gregson pointed out. "You ought to know that."

Lestrade glared his distaste.

"Come on, Lestrade. Give up a lost cause. The groom's gone. London's a big city."

"Really, I hadn't noticed." Lestrade viciously sucked smoke into his lungs. Over the tiny glow, his dark eyes glowed with their own resentment. "It's my case and I'm stuck with it." It was a final concession to what they both know: It would go nowhere; solving it would do very little. The groom had been a drunk, and a violent one. A loud night of bullying, a beating on his wife and her elderly mother…who wanted to do more than trace the pool of blood left on the backstep facing the mews?

"It's a dead-end case." Gregson pointed out. "You'll get nowhere with it. Hell, you know it. Why are you even killing yourself over a lout like that?"

Lestrade didn't give him an answer, just let his head shake from side to side.

Gregson puffed smoke across the desk. "What are you even trying for, anyway?"

"If there's a body, it needs to be found." Lestrade answered, stubborn as ever.

"Even if it means someone might hang for doing the world a favour?" Gregson didn't spare his arrogance. "Find him, and one of those women will hang. Mebbe both. Are you going to feel proud of that?"

Lestrade's face went from pale to dark, and his eyes flashed like fire. "It's my case, Gregson. Not yours."

"Good for me." Gregson blew an O between them as he started out the door.

"Oh…Gregson." Lestrade said very softly.

Gregson paused by the jamb.

"No matter what I find…it's not up to me to hang anyone and you know it." Lestrade's eyes tightened with open dislike. "It's up to the Jury. And you know as well as I do how often a woman is hung."

Gregson's gut locked up in the same dislike directed at him. In poor grace he stamped out and made his plans for Bethnal Green.

1 One of the earliest produced mechanical typewriters


	3. Bedeviled

_Gregson again...because he's just good at tormenting Lestrade. This is a somewhat dark event, so apologies if it seems callous in the treatment thereof...people in high-stress situations have to process and deal with the tension on a regular basis as a survival tactic..._

It was a scene out of Dickens.

And of course, Gregson finished the observation in his mind, it wouldn't be a pleasant scene out of Dickens either. Oh, goodness no. That would have been an unrealistic fantasy to be sure—less believable than his odds of winning a lottery, and he didn't even play.

Looking upon the disaster that was the "open square" of Bethnal Green, Gregson's first literary parallel had been obvious and humorous: "A Tale of Two Cities." Bethnal Green qualified for being a separate fiefdom within London, just as many of the other little boroughs, unsafe regions, slums and waterfronts.

People lived here. Gregson couldn't imagine them doing it by choice, but there it was. They lived here, and a lot of them had been born right on the street, and probably most of those were already dead…or on their way.

"Higgens."

Higgens touched his helmet brim. Gregson preferred the man when he had to be in this part of London; if the man had ever been shaken up by something, it had been years ago and a vaccine against future upsets. Behind a soft-looking face was a spine carved of limestone.

"Yes, sir?"

"How did this start?"

Higgens paused as if for courtesy, his depthless brown eyes passing over the huddled, moaning masses of injury. "I would say, sir, it started when the barrel fell off the back of the cart and broke in the middle of the street. As soon as the gin fumes hit the air, it was bees to the honey."

"Which spooked the horse, and drove the driver mad." Gregson felt his nose cramp as the wind changed, and sent the appalling mixture of gin, bitter agent, horse-dung, street rubbish, and the unwashed masses all at once into their faces.

"I'm a bit surprised, sir, that the man was by himself."

It wasn't a safe thing to do, and that was the truth. "Probably thought he'd be safe enough if he kept moving."

They watched in silence a few moments more. Ten of Higgens' ilk had been dispatched to restore order—and they knew not to do it with the truncheon. The threat of that short club was enough to re-start the riot that had freshly burnt itself out.

Gregson wondered how much of it he'd missed. He could see the aftermath easily—like seeing ashes and knowing there had been a fire. It was obvious.

That scene from Dickens, when the wine-barrel burst on the street. He'd read the whole thing years ago, mostly to see what all the fussing was about. But he remembered the part where the wine-barrel had burst in the street, and the starving masses had scrambled to suck up every drop before it could sink into the filth. At the time, he'd gagged at the thought of humans flinging themselves down like animals and drinking straight out of the gutter.

He didn't any more. He wasn't a layspeaker's son as much as he was a policeman now.

Gin, however, hit rather harder than an oak barrel full of French wine.

Someone cleared their throat from behind; Gregson could tell by the pitch, timbre, and height who it was. He didn't turn around—he was a little too fascinated by the horror of the street. "You're up early, Lestrade."

Lestrade shouldered easily between Gregson and Higgens without seeming to. Gregson had never figured out how he could do that. "The Chief thought there should be more of us here in case of innocent reporters."

Gregson grunted. Lestrade's voice was drier than the gin-spirits evaporating on the cobbles (well, what there was of the cobbles). "Got worried, eh? Well, lucky for us, they haven't shown up yet."

"Oh, heavens. They insisted they would be here by cock-crow." Lestrade was instantly paranoid on the possibilities.

"Don't panic, Lestrade. They're probably still taking their coffee in a sweet little shop right now, discussing the importance of their project for the papers."

Someone shrieked in the crowd being made to stagger up out of the street and at least recline against the bricks of the walls. Bethnal Green had been an old weaving-region for enough generations that the history reflected on the rags: Silk bits patched on with the cheapest wool. Dry-rotted cotton was too valuable to scorn either. No one thought of ever taking off their clothing, as they didn't have a place to put it, so men, women, and children wore five or six layers of slowly rotting suits, shirts and dresses against their skin. They were probably all white, but there was no telling under the exposed skin coated with soot, grease, and whatever they'd lain in during the night.

Lestrade's dark eyes were deep and stone-like as he looked upon the scene. He said nothing at first, just watched. The Constables were continuing their patient work; curses worked when tugging didn't, and threats were a language in itself.

"What was a gin-cart doing here?" He wondered under his breath.

"The Driver was going to take it to the waterfront, but was late when he got caught behind a broken hansome. He drove past the break-down, and I'm presuming to suggest that was where his horse picked up the splinter under his hoof. The horse started acting up as he took this…short-cut…but the Driver didn't know his horse enough to trust it."

Lestrade grimaced at that. "Fool."

"Oh, I'll agree with you on that—might as well break a few myths today and say we can agree on something. But the horse was in enough pain that it tried to get away from the cart, and when he was trying to beat it into submission—like you said, fool—it raised up, and the cart had a weak spot in the back, and the barrel rolled against the back and—"

"And a windfall of gin."

"Descended upon Bethnal Green like manna from heaven."

The wind struck them again. It was growing ripe as the liquid unlocked things long unseen in the street. Gregson's eyes watered. Lestrade winced but neither would have taken the risk of putting a cloth to their faces. A sign of weakness like that would be like throwing that same gin into a conflagration.

"Where's the horse?"

"Sent it to the shop. They can probably save it. I don't know about the driver. He was stupid enough to take his riding crop to the crowd, and it hit a child. They stick together in the Green."

Lestrade grimaced, knowing too well what could have happened. The only thing these people had were each other, and together they made a formidable resource.

The barrel had long since been broken into staves. Like in Dickens, the people were chewing on the wood.

A constable caught a man lying on his stomach, his face sucking at the filth in the gutter.

"That's it." Lestrade snapped. "I've had all I can take."

"You should have been here ten minutes ago, when they were sucking it out of their clothes." Gregson called after his departing back.

"In God's name what is happening here?"

Gregson had been preparing himself for this moment. He did no more than smile wryly and turn to the shocked young man who was dressed far, far too well for this part of London. "Good-morning, Mr. James. Is Mr. Powell attending us today?"

James, an up and coming apprentice to Powell in terms of reporting, blushed slightly, which sent invisible freckles to the front of his face. "Mr. Powell is feeling ill, and sent me in his stead."

Gregson opened his mouth to demand what sort of fool would send a young, well-dressed lamb to the wolves, but shut his mouth before anything could come out. He tried again, and thought of something safe to say.

"A gin-barrel burst upon the streets before you got here, Mr. James. You're here in time for the end of it."

"What is…" James peered, swaying from side to side on his feet as if it would help him. "What is that man doing? Is that another Inspector?"

"Inspector Lestrade." Gregson nodded. "He's helping PC Higgens pull that sot out of the street and against the wall." The beggar's face glistened with black, gin-flavoured mud.

James made a faint protest in his throat. "Was he…was he _drinking_ that?"

Where did Powell find these lambs? Gregson patted the boy on the back comfortingly, knowing that if he wanted a decent write-up in these rags, manners and solicitation was the key to his survival. There were those in the Main Office in charge of badges, stripes, promotions and career destructions who never once cracked open a report of a man on their desk…but they did read the paper.

"Don't you worry, sir. They're being taken care of right now."

As if to support him, the wind returned. Mr. James turned green under his freckles, and turned his face quickly, resisting the urge to vomit.

"How many do we have, Higgens?" Gregson bellowed.

"Thirty-two, sir!" Higgens called back as damp papers swirled with the soot at their feet.

"Call for Mother, would you?"

"Already done, Gregson." Lestrade assured him from across the "square"—really, someone should just go ahead and start calling it what it was—an opening too poor and slovenly to be a mews.

Gregson grinned to himself, because Lestrade sounded like he would very much like to use his fists on a punching-bag with Gregson's face penciled over the leather.

"What mother would be called here?" Mr. James strangled.

"Are you feeling well, sir?" Gregson asked with sweet concern. The boy was feeling too ill to notice. "We can pull aside so you can be downwind while you take your notes."

The boy recalled his task, and Gregson pretended not to notice the frantic fumble for his writing-instruments. The sight of Lestrade taking down the drunken names of the beggars was far better an entertainment.

"To answer your question," he cleared his throat. "Mother is our little word for the Black Maria."

"I thought it was the Black Mariah."

"No, sir. It's pronounced Black Mariah, but there's no h in our wagons. We call them Mother's Hearts when we're in a situation like this."

"Why?" James looked up over the street where a familiar-looking wagon was pulling up. A fresh Constable hopped off and assisted in the directing of traffic.

"Well, because there's always room for one more." Gregson smiled without humour.

"Are these people being arrested, then?"

"Arrested? If we arrested every beggar in London for drinking rubbish, I'll allow the city would be a lot cleaner…but we'd be out of our own homes." Gregson's sobriety on the subject overwhelmed his usual craving for advancement. "Besides, these aren't really beggars, Mr. James." He nodded grimly as a knot of children tried to break free and were firmly rounded back up. "These folk aren't headed to the workhouse, sir. They're going to the asylum."

-

"What in the _world_ is going on with that boy?" Lestrade wanted to know the next moment they were alone.

Gregson manfully kept his back to the sounds of retching in the gutter. "I think it was a little too much for him to take."

"One of Powell's?" Lestrade guessed sarcastically. "Drank too much last night, so he sends his little apprentice to do the hard work in his place, eh?"

"Have you ever noticed Powell always drinks too much the night before a job like this?"

"No, I haven't made a study of Powell-ology." Lestrade put his hands in his pockets. A sooty handprint decorated his shoulder on the left like a banner. "I'm usually trying to avoid him."

Gregson wouldn't admit he did the same thing. "The boy had no idea he was within touching distance of a bunch of madmen." He murmured.

Lestrade blinked his awareness. "Well, to do him credit…they don't really look mad right now. Just…desperate."

"When that gin finishes up, we'll see a sight for certain."

"I can't believe they were drinking that stuff." Lestrade snorted. "Did you know it was already mixed?"

"Mixed? As in, quinine?" Gregson blinked. "Well, I would daresay that explains why they all decided to lay themselves out for a nap in the middle of the street…"

"I thought that old gaffer with the burnt beard was _dead_." Lestrade confessed in a whisper.

"The day is young." Gregson whispered back. "Some of those lot, they had to have drunk past the point of reason…" He whistled softly. "Oh, dear. There's no telling how much they have drunk…and the bitter taste wouldn't have put them off."

"That barrel was going to a ship somewhere…someplace full of malaria."

The men watched together as the wagon clopped patiently down the road to the nearest madhouse. Mr. James was still struggling to jettison the remainder of his breakfast.

"There's a bit of silver in every cloud." Gregson said at last.

"Prove me wrong, Gregson. Tell me how there's possibly a bit of silver in a clot of mentally ill men, women and children, who all by now think they're related from all the years they've lived together, falling upon a barrel of gin so laced with quinine you might as well call it poison. I give them halfway to Bedlam before they start vomiting inside the Maria."

"The good news is, the Chief's been under pressure to get these poor woodscolts off the streets for years now—but they always managed to get away."

"Good God, you make it sound like we could just bait beggars like rats with doped up spirits."

"Wasn't my intention. But they'll be up where they need to be, and they can stop selling themselves for the un-doped gin every day."

"Now what?" Lestrade muttered. "I don't envy you the report for this."

"Not exactly volunteering, are we?"

"I'm still looking for that bloody groom." Lestrade sighed and tugged his hat tighter around his ears. "And on the subject of madmen, Gregson…what the devil are you doing on this side of London without your bowler?"

"It's being repaired." Gregson said without shame.

Lestrade's eyes widened. "You ninny." He informed his rival with more than a little cause. "You came here, without decent protection on your thick skull?"

"Careful, Lestrade. People might get the wrong idea about us."

Lestrade sputtered. "Now I'm going to _have_ to go with you!" He exclaimed in consistently-rising voice. Mr. James poked a bleary eye from the gutter in half-interest. "You could have at least told Higgens to stay with you! My word, Gregson! A half-top can't protect you from a horsefly, much less a flying brick in the slums!"

"Protect my virtue, then." Gregson smirked at him. "Come along."

"_What about that bloody groom?"_

"Lestrade…" Gregson sighed. "The man's dead, correct?"

"Of course he is! He couldn't have left that much blood behind and gone walking about!"

"Well…wherever he is, I doubt he's going anywhere right now."

Lestrade purpled. This early in the day, Gregson wondered what else he could do until it was time to leave.

"All right." The little man agreed, though he was trying not to breathe too hard as he spoke. "I'll accompany you, because you are a man of the Metro, and you came to work even though you know full well a bowler is the only safe thing to have on your head...whatever did you do to it?"

"Not a thing. The wind blew it off while I was keying my door open, and it blew under a water-cart."

Lestrade's exasperation deepened. "For the record, my duty is to protect the civilian if trouble hits between us and the nearest cab."

"Not to worry, Lestrade." Gregson grinned at him. The report would be terrible, and the rewards dubious. The journalist was too busy with his delicate constitution to give a decent coverage of a disgusting job (Gregson wondered if any of the lunatics would indeed wind up in the morgue), and there were probably a few surprises left in the mess. But it wasn't all bad if he could stir Lestrade up to pitch-fury.

And, frankly, he couldn't resist. Lestrade was such a stuck-professional in what he did. It made it easy.


	4. Devil's Milk

Devil's Milk

It might have been the lateness of the hour, but Montague Street looked…faded.

Lestrade paused underneath the watery light of the street-lamp and ignored the faint rumble of carts behind his back. Somewhere in the grey-green buildings, a man and woman were screaming it out over something that had to do with the Regent's Canal—of which one could still get a healthy whiff whenever the wind shifted from the north side.

The Inspector listened with half an ear. Were it a domestic dispute, he would be more concerned with homicide. Even in London it didn't seem likely that someone would stick a person over the smell coming into the open window…it wasn't as if a shut window would keep the wind out…

Montague Street was full of moments like this—and considering the sheer unfashionable reputation of Camden…that was almost a compliment.

A man like Bob Cratchit wouldn't have been able to afford better. Times had slipped to a poorer state even since _A Christmas Carol_—Lestrade couldn't possibly imagine the Cratchit family being so cheerful and fearless in this day and age. Now one's worries would be much much worse than an ailing Tiny Tim and a daughter who couldn't get home to spend the holiday with her parents. They'd be worried about that same daughter getting home safely, or what their children might be doing to bring home survival money. The fifteen bob a week

In the darkness, a huddled man was coughing the last of his days out with emphysema. The sounds were clarion-clear. The fog was rolling slowly in…the night would be another battle for this man in the open air, against the dampness of the stinking puddles.

Lestrade picked his way across the gleaming black pot-holes. Rheumy red and blue eyes stared back at him, defiant and silent. Lestrade courteously avoided eye contact. It would not be appreciated or wanted. The wind blew up a terrible reek: rotting garbage and offal and human wastes…they both moved quickly. Lestrade to the other side of the street, and the homeless man to the dubious shelter of the snicket between a small shop and the very building Lestrade was about to enter.

_Fruit_, the small man realized. _There must be a fruit-monger's stall and he threw the spoilt parts in the street…_it did occur to him that perhaps the poverty was not so dire here, for in some parts of the city, even a stinking-rotten cabbage would be ripped apart and eaten by a man hungry enough. He'd seen it too many times. He'd seen two men nearly kill themselves with their knives over that rotten cabbage. And yet they had fought the policeman, for better they starve than shame themselves at being put in gaol…

A small black shape flitted across his path; its mate ran directly over his shoe. He swallowed an oath. Rats were a part of London…moreso the closer to the water. He didn't miss that part of his early days along the banks, where the feel of those tiny paws was a regular occurrence.

He was never partial to animals…but to rats he was the least attached.

High time he got this over with.

He took a deep breath. The door-knocker was of the old-fashioned, solid sort, a conglomeration of iron and brass and it was of such an unpleasant mien he doubted even a starving man would nick it for the metal. Jacob Marley's ghost supplanting the ring wouldn't have been as unsettling as this contraption meant to resemble a Chinese dog with an African lion in its ancestry.

_I haven't read any sort of Dickens in years…something must be the matter with me…_

And in the meantime, the fog was rolling its way to him. Lestrade grimaced at the enemy's latest approach and lifted the knocker, glad for his gloves. Through the thin leather he felt the clammy chill of weeping metal.

The landlady who answered was a frightening sort; the stamp of womanhood that sought control as a right of her station. The hard, small eyes scoured him like carbolic acid once, twice, even three times before it paused to think that he might desire admittance.

His badge, Lestrade was strangely amused to note, took no more than a moment's consideration.

"He's inside tonight." The old dragon said of the hand-drawn image in his hand. "Has he done something, then?"

Lestrade caught the underlying eagerness in the dirty woman, and something contrary and obstinate rose to the challenge. "Not at all. An assistant to a case, if you get my meaning."

Oh, she loved the implication that one of her lodgers in this dirty town and filthy street might have seen something. With a grin shy of three teeth (all on the bottom), she paid a huge kick to one of the doors in the hallway, and she stood aside when that same door was torn open with enough force to send its hinge shrieking.

"Mrs. Wexler?" The high voice belonged to a man who was either upset beyond all comprehension, or had not finished settling his vocal gifts. Lestrade's hopes sank as he watched the drama unfold: a dismayingly young-looking man bent over the landlady like a serpent over a bird. "I trust you have a reason for this interruption?"

"Not I, Mr. Holmes!" The sniff was fantastic. "Your guest."

"Guest?"

Lestrade's heart had still been in the process of sinking at the proof of youth upon that lean face. Then the head with black hair turned, and eyes grey as a spring cloud fastened upon him. _Not so young, then. Just moves like a young man does still_.

"Mr. Lestrade," a voice rolled forth. That swiftly, the impression of youth and inexperience had rolled away like a holed carpet. "You have not yet recovered from your duties upon the London Particular that struck us in '77."

Something about that voice—or perhaps the way he was being looked at up and down like something that was on the other side of the zoo-bars…hackled. "If someone's been telling stories about my competency, sir, I would like to know about it."

The young man chuckled as if Lestrade had said something amusing. "Not at all," he responded with a swiftness that made the other's head spin. "You are underweight—else your clothing is cut slightly too large for your form, and with your eye to dress that would be most unlikely. A man who spends his limited pay on the better footwear would hardly ignore the cut of his coat when a tailor charges by how much cloth he must cut." A long, nearly skeletal finger dipped in the air between them, and before Lestrade could finish enduring the unpleasantness of his face warming under embarrassment—

"You are a most unhealthy colour, even for someone who serves his life among the streets of London. A yellowish tinge such as that would suggest a blow to the liver, but you are obviously not of that sort. Nor do you reek of the noxious chemicals that labour in a factory would bring…" With complete unconsciousness, the other hand waved at the startled detective—it still had a battered pipe between the fingers. "You may have a jaundiced view, Inspector, but you are certainly not jaundiced of the liver."

"I beg your pardon?" Lestrade protested hastily.

"So. We have a man that for some reason, has been putting his health at risk by spending far too much time in London when he should be resting in the countryside away from the fogs. Why is he not? Smoke is a common cause—possibly the leading such cause—for such a dry, sallow complexion…but he can hardly separate himself from the cause of his illness if he leaves the city, for that is his livelihood." The stem of the awful looking pipe went to those thin lips; smoke poured out. "Poor diet, exhaustion, stress, and one's blood line are the leading causes of sallow skin. "Despite your efforts to be discreet, Inspector, you have a truncheon at your waist underneath your coat. However, it is not of the usual and more commonplace oaken colour model the average Constable clips to his belt. It is a much older style, unique to the Special Constables appointed to deal with the many regrettable riots during the early portion of the Queen's reign—which, if I may, was before you were even born. Your truncheon was smoothed down and painted black. A very simple crown is scratched into the paint along with two interesting initials: CID which might in itself mean Criminal Investigations Department, but for the GL beneath. There was a rather famous example of the Metropolitan Police by the title of Chief Constable Davids, "the Wonderful Welshman" who personally appointed a Constable G. Lestrade from his beat along the Thames to the offices of Scotland Yard. He died without heirs, I am told, but he must have meant something to you for he passed along his truncheon."

The air seemed thin…or his lungs had shrunk in the hallway. The man was standing there, smoking, and that damned smile was still hovering over his face. Lestrade struggled to breathe in a way that wouldn't be any worse than it was now.

"Really, Hiatt needs to rethink the pattern of the single-locking handcuffs." _He wasn't finished._ "The non-adjustable grips can cause more problems than they solve."

Lestrade had one of the least-proudest moments in his life: He'd forgotten why he'd come to see this lunatic.

"Have a drink."

That quickly, Holmes turned his back and went inside his room. The door was left open. Lestrade took a step inside, not being told otherwise.

Books littered the walls and floor in stacks, piles, and almost-neat shelving construed of whatever furniture would do the service. Lestrade had the feeling that were it only possible, Mr. Holmes would have put his books on the ceiling in a similar fashion and then completely ignored the danger to his head.

Books weren't the half of it in the dirty-looking light. Glass chemistry bits speckled here and there like discarded Christmas ornaments. A few of them Lestrade was positive he had never seen before, and he'd been haunting the laboratories of late. The largest piece was a glass cone with the tip missing…he was almost certain it was some sort of condensing extractor, but he'd never seen one that size before.

The little man felt positively dwarfed in the face of this disaster. While he hadn't expected it, a flicker of sympathy for the man's landlady stubbornly showed itself.

"Whisky and soda," Holmes was saying, "on the shelf. I did have cigars but I fear they did not survive my latest guest." He gave a sniff that somehow made Lestrade completely forget about the mess. "Aesthetics who smoke to curb their appetite are a strange lot." He turned swift as a dancer, bent over a glass bowl, and struck the bottom of his pipe so the unused dottle popped out like a cork. There appeared to be a collection of them already. "One ought to smoke for better reasons," the last was said under his breath.

Lestrade was wondering what madhouse he had been sent to…and who could he blame for this sort of joke? Someone must have set Dr. Roanoke up to this.

"Why Lestrade?"

Lestrade nearly jumped out of his skin, caught guilty in having a thought. Holmes was standing up against the undersized and pitifully small fireplace, a freshly-loaded pipe for disaster already lighting in his fingers.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why Lestrade?"

"I…that is…my name is Lestrade." Lestrade stammered. At least his back was to the door if this turned into a case for the Black Maria. The possibility of this being a joke was swelling like dough on a warm day.

"No, no." Holmes waved his hand so quickly the smoke went flying in all directions. He really is lean as a scarecrow, the detective realised. "You failed to react when I mis-pronounced your surname, my good fellow. Thus you are either so used to the common pronunciation, or you chose that form deliberately. I was merely curious as to its motive." He paused and added swiftly: "Although I have encountered a family of Basques who place the emphasis on the second syllable, you have not the look of that particular branch of Iberian bloodstock. Western Peninsula for you, with your small stature and rounded eyes, in which case one might argue you merely returned to the land of your forefathers. Still, the matter of the surname is only for my personal curiosity."

Lestrade grimaced. This man appeared to take all forms of curiosity as personal! "How someone uses my name is not a thing I can easily control."

"You could correct someone as soon as they made their error."

"Harming a person's pride is not a good idea."

"So you allow them to attack yours? There is a price in that form of courtesy."

Had he just been scolded? Lestrade fought for control again. Want to ensure a short, interesting and ugly career in the Met? Tell your Chief he's got your name wrong. "My name is mis-pronounced, perhaps, to you. It is not to me."

"Hah!" The bark of laughter was short and sharp…and loud as a gunpowder snapper. "Better the Cockney form than the French? You are in a large company. The drinks are below the glasses."

"Thank you, but no. I am not here to drink." At least, he wasn't before he came here…

Mr. Holmes tilted his head to one side like a curious parrot. The nose only helped that impression.

"Dr. Roanoke, of Scotland Yard, requested me to detain you what he called a "pretty problem."

The reaction was so extreme Lestrade nearly took a step backwards. The grey eyes went silver as mercury, and a flush traveled up that bony face. Lestrade was shocked that this took some illusion of years off the man—he was in his third decade, surely, but his sheer thinness and the impression that his brow was overgrowing his head made one think he was much taller and older than he really was.

_Just how old is this boy? Does his mother know he's spending his college education on squalid rooms in Montague Street?_

"By all means, present the problem to me, and I shall see if I can assist."

Relieved that this part was over with, Lestrade pulled out the tiny money-bag and placed it on the table. Neither man looked at it for the move would have given deep offense and created a heavy pall upon the negotiations about to start.

"A dead man under Dr. Roanoke's attention was a suspected poisoner. When the investigation grew too close, it would appear that he took his own wares to prevent the hands of British Law."

"Ah, so you've finally caught up with the good Mr. Frogge." Holmes responded with a touch of sarcasm. "I warned the Yard some time ago that his life was drawing to the end of the circle."

"That may be, but I was not made aware of that, Mr. Holmes."

"Continue."

"Very well." Lestrade ignored the slight slur against his profession. "Dr. Roanoke is stumped at a piece of paper found in his pockets. It would appear to be from a diary, but the wording is peculiar. Three words in particular are puzzling him: "Milk," goes the first word, and then beneath it, under an indention, are two more words separated by a comma: "Devil's and Wolf's."

Holmes threw himself backwards into a chair (ignoring a book in the back), his eyes glowing like unholy little lamps as he pressed his fingertips together. Lestrade encountered his most unsettling sensation yet, for the man was thinking, to the point that Lestrade could _feel_ him thinking. Just a bit harder, and he would be able to hear those cogs grinding.

"Mr. Frogge, for all his commonality, was a Continental of the first water," Holmes mused. "And he came from a most distinguished family of chemists, some of who developed or assisted in the development of many drugs we use today." His thin lips twitched. "My expertise comes from my natural interest in organic chemistry, you see. It was inevitable that we would meet one day on the battlefield."

"I take it there was no love lost." Lestrade guessed with no effort.

"Perhaps in a way." Holmes' smile grew wider, and it resembled a silent snigger. "He did feel flattered enough at my attention that he promised to find a way to poison me personally. I'm sure he would have, were he not so caught up in a contract with Merck."

"Did you speak to the Yard over that?" Lestrade was shocked.

"No proof, Mr. Lestrade. No proof—no bother."

Lestrade stared as the threat of premature death merely washed over the young man.

"Back to your strange paper…it was mostly likely a diary page. The man kept a log of his more interesting compounds. But as to what the substances were…" He pursed his lips together thoughtfully. "Frogge kept to the German standards of extracts. Wolf's Milk is merely the English translation for Solomon's Seal. The plant is graceful yet otherwise unremarkable…but the small rhizomes have a sweetish flavour when tasted, and the German peasant holds the belief that a wolf will dig up the root and eat it when he suffers damage in battle."

"Solomon's…seal?" Lestrade pulled out his notebook and wrote it down, thinking that he had earned his own fee for tonight.

"Devil's Milk, I fear, you will have a greater trouble with. It is a generic word for several different plants in the _Euphorbia_ name, commonly known as spurge, all marked with the ability to week an acrid and thick white sap or latex when wounded. What the Devil has to do with it, I'm certain I have no idea, but I should like to find out some day." He puffed slightly, remembering he had a pipe. "None of the plants that I know of that description are meant to be taken internally. Dandelion has been called Devil's Milk on occasion, but no one hears of a dandelion poisoning. No, if this is a case for poisoning, look to the bottle of Euphorbia on his cabinet. If it is a case of a general tonic, I would say go no further than the patch of dandelion in his salad-bed. Either way you shall come to a conclusion."

His pipe recalled, Mr. Holmes regarded its stem. "Frogge was attached to the plants that could kill as easily as they could heal. If he was using _Euphorbia_, then I would suggest one should look at the clients who were being treated for skin-cancers. The sap's use in dissolving such marks are well known. He may have even treated them successfully, assuming they never roused his strange temper and led him to throw his terrible additives into his potions." Grey eyes flitted over Lestrade again. "He was a man of his pride, our late Mr. Frogge. To his peculiar way of thinking, death by using a man's own medicine against him was in truth the Hand of Justice."

Dazed beyond the grip of speech, Lestrade found himself standing under a street-lamp like a common loiterer.

He was actually sweating.

What had just happened? He was a policeman, an Inspector…and if anyone was supposed to be upset and off-balance it shouldn't be him!

No wonder Roanoke sent him in his place. This Holmes character—and a man who was overly blessed with character if there ever was one—was like no one in his life. He flushed again to remember the little ways he'd been embarrassed by the man. His clothing, his ill appearance, his own name.

And yet the man—or boy—or some strange combination of the two—had figured out what had taken Roanoke hours. _That quickly_ he'd put it in his mind, and his mind had tossed out the answers.

"Take this to Mr. Sherlock Holmes of Montague Street, but don't tell him what I suspect. If he comes to the same conclusion, then we'll know I'm right."

Lestrade rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. They had all sorts of consultants working for the Yard, but damned if he'd ever seen one like this.

Well, he was rude and crass even if he was smart, but Lestrade could notice things too. All that mental showing-off had to have been from all that reading scattered about the room…and it was clear that given a choice between a book and a meal, the book would win.

Aesthetic, was it? People starved themselves for different reasons. He didn't completely respect those who had the means for food and didn't take care of themselves. But the way that man nipped about, there was a chance he actually forgot to eat once that brain took over.

Plants that heal, plants that kill. He wasn't so unfamiliar with them…Good Lord. England was crawling with poisonous plants. But that idea that something that could kill could also heal was familiar too.

Something bitter could be something sweet in the long run, if it helped cure an unpleasant condition.

The thought came to him then, in that weak puddle of light, and he started laughing while the homeless man in the gutter wondered if he should call for a bobby.

A bitter substance for a sweet outcome.

One might as well describe Mr. Sherlock Holmes.


	5. The Grape Harvest

_Today is Colin Jeavons' birthday. Now while I could have made up another Lestrade-fic, I chose instead to take on his other, less-known role as one of the most alarming Professors ever to grace the screen. Played with "chilling authority" by Davies, Jeavons made a Moriarty on the little-known show, The Baker Street Boys. While Moriarty never encountered Sherlock Holmes in front of the children, he did confront Dr. Watson and I'm told it was quite the showdown of wills. Perhaps someday I'll get to see it._

_I answered a meme-monster by going to the French Republican Calendar on wikipedia and looked up the meme prompts for October 20:_

_Season: Vendémiaire (Grape Harvest)_

_Day: Orge (barley)_

_Numerical day of the calendar: 29_

-

One really needed to pay for the experts.

The professor toyed with the notion of just turning his back on the window and not looking out, but everyone else was watching the divers at work and he knew the arithmetic of standing apart.

Amateurs.

Below them the Thames swirled, filthy from the recent sewage and whatever the autumn rains at the headwaters had pulled down.

He shook his head as the brokers murmured and flowed about him. He was a small man, but the set of his shoulders and the glimmer in his eyes discouraged one from coming too close.

The water stirred and the river-police began shouting. They swarmed like ants with less the efficiency and clustered about the pumping-station.

The body emerged in sections, like the raising of a boat.

"Terrible thing." Someone was saying. He looked; it was the old book-seller, here to ply his trade among the merchants' elite. A barely-read copy of CROMWELL'S ECONOMICS hovered in a spidery claw. The book was cleaner than its vendor.

"That it is." His beefy customer agreed. "Vamberry was a good sort. The best wine-merchant you'd ever think to see."

_He was a drooling fool_, the professor thought. _And he sold you all that wine at a loss because he needed those barrels to hide other things. The world's better off without him and you think he's a good man because he was cheap to your pockets_.

But he remained silent, as always. Here was a place of business, and here it was sensible to mingle with the masses even if they hadn't the collective sense of a flock of geese. At least the geese knew where and how to fly for the winter.

They stepped aside as he passed; the sharp grey eyes of the bookseller seeming to linger on him. Well he would have to find another customer for his wares.

The professor was a spare man, and not obtrusive in the room. He threaded obediently closer to the window like everyone else, a cool-faced overly calm man with measured speech and an even more measuring gaze. Outside of his tutoring room he was far from the warm, friendly numerical adviser his students recognized. The reason for this was simple: numbers were his humanity. He loved them with a passion few could fathom, and he learned early on that no one else cared about them the way he did.

No one else, not even Moran, could understand him. If he told anyone that numbers had their own personality, that the number nine made a perfect square or that the recitation of the Fibonacci Sequence never went far because the hilarity of the numbers made him laugh helplessly…they wouldn't understand and they would at best nod without comprehension. Between himself and the comforting world of numbers, he built a sheltering wall.

The wall was imperfect in his youth; the slight fog of apartness and his business dealings had cost him his educational post but he was older now, less prone to mistakes and certainly less innocent.

"Excuse me, sir."

Below them Vamberry's soggy remains were being stretched out on the wet cobbles; a police surgeon waited nearby. He thought he recognized a few of the faces among the police although he rarely encountered that particular branch.

He turned his head from the monotonous scene and looked upon his broker. "Yes, Mr. Higgens?"

Higgens touched a gloved hand to his waxed mustache. "The shares have been finalized. Are you certain you wish to trade?"

The professor wished brokers looked to the numbers behind the numbers; the stories they would find would be illuminating. And they would at least reduce his need to answer questions.

"I do, Mr. Higgens."

"Then all we need is your signature."

They crossed the carpet together, with the space opening up as more people realised they could see more of Vamberry's corpse.

A shame it hadn't been Moran in charge, he thought. Vamberry wouldn't have been found within a hundred miles of London.

Higgens produced a full quire of paper; multiple copies of each and the waiting document to seal. His secretary pulled out a chair for the professor first and then his superior.

"Not many people are seeking to trade in the corn shares now." Higgens noted. It was his way of confessing the curiosity was about to expire him. "They're all caught up in the grape harvests."

He thought of telling the man the truth. That with Krakatoa bursting the volcanic ash into the atmosphere would affect the climate and pinch the crops. Long-season corn would be rendered obsolete save in a few isolated pockets of the world. Only cool-season corn like barley, rye, and spelt would remain stable.

But then, if the man only knew his history, he would already know from the examples of the world.

From small events come large changes.

He once calculated the necessary drop in temperature to bring about the next Ice Age.

Seven degrees.

That was all.

If the world cooled off by seven degrees they would be back to the wintry wastes.

He chose to say nothing again. The man didn't understand…couldn't understand. There was no equal among him that would fathom his thoughts. Another stone within the wall.

"Excellent, sir." Higgens was useful in his lack of imagination. He even believed the story that his client had been given the bulk of his shares by a considerate relative. He gestured and the secretary briefly vanished; with a flourish he opened a locked drawer and pulled out his japanned tin of sealing-wax.

He had to admit, he enjoyed this part of business. Higgens was so punctual in his movements, and if they shared something besides the client-broker relationship, it was the satisfaction of a job well done. Higgens folded the papers over in the appropriate dimensions, and held out a neatly trimmed stick of wax. Not a speck of candle-soot marred the bright red wax. It melted in the heat of the lamp-light by drops, and he swiftly transferred the drops to a cooling puddle. One press of the seal and the job was finished.

"I sincerely wish you well, Professor." Higgens informed him gracefully. "Just as I am certain the Crown is appreciative of your support."

He smiled at that. "No doubt, Mr. Higgens." He agreed softly.

"Truly, sir. We do not have as many purchased shares in the Company interests like we used to. I suppose the new generation is too caught up in the temptations of striking out solitary into the world." He sighed and grew momentarily regretful. "Now that Mr. Vamberry is gone, you are my last such farseeing client."

"Then I hope you find more."

Higgens nodded mournfully, and they looked up at the arrival of the secretary. He bore a tray and two glasses with a bottle. It was the last part of Higgens' ritual, the conclusion of it all.

"It would have been more fitting if this had been one of Mr. Vamberry's bottles." Higgens regretted as the wine was poured. "But a Chenin from 1829 can hardly be rejected."

Moriarty felt a moment of relief and quashed it. "I'm sure he would appreciate your thoughtfulness." He was determined to never, ever touch his lips to anything with Vamberry's name to it ever again. For the sake of his own sanity and acumen.

Higgens sighed and they swirled the pale liquid against the thin glass. The wine painted the sides a delicate yellow; grapes from the south. The vintage reminded him of a field of barley-straw under the sun. Assuming there would be much sun this year. His calculations were against it. "The man had a hand with the wine."

"That he most certainly did." His client agreed evenly.

"I still cannot believe he is dead." Higgens sipped at the same time as Moriarty; the flavours mingled dry as chalk with a hint of spiciness. "Who would wish to kill Vamberry?"

"Perhaps a business venture gone wrong." Moriarty offered evenly. "A wine-merchant's clientele can be a...temperamental lot." He took a second sip, appreciating the second rush of flavours. "A client might have found disagreement with the quality of one of his barrels…that might be all it took for all we know."

"That is true. Wine-merchants are a flighty lot." Higgens agreed.

Across the table, Professor Moriarty smiled gently. "But they do have their uses."


	6. A Very Good Month for Fog

Meme Challenge: Colin Jeavons' Birthday.

_Because I am a FIRM believer in not crossing the line between actor and character, I made up a birthday for this particular character:_

_Brumaire: Month of Fog._

_Day of the Service tree_

_English calendar: 19 November_

_The servicetree is one of the rarest trees in the UK, but much-loved by its fans. Lestrade is more likely to know it by the common English name of Whitty Pear—whitty because of the shape of the pinnate (featherlike) leaves; they would look amusing to the English eye, and the "pear" because some of the species' fruits are pear-shaped. A "garth" is an enclosure, so when Lestrade is standing in an apple-garth, he's standing inside an enclosed cluster of fruit trees.  
_

-

There were a few places where one could forget, if briefly, one lived in London. This place was as far as one could get and still claim the address. He couldn't smell the Thames and that made him feel oddly disconnected. He couldn't think of the city without the river.

Lestrade shivered inside the protection of his winter coat—it would do until Christmas—and watched the slow skiff of snow fall upon the dying gardens. Thousands of millions of minute grains of ice fell upon the wood and earth and remaining dry leaf.

Before long the estate would be covered in a thin blanket of gritty white.

He told himself it didn't matter. Clues couldn't be found if they never existed.

Whitty pears ringed the apple-garth; even they looked to shiver in the thin curtain of snow with their skeleton-leaves and last-clinging fruit. They weren't the most practical thing to grow; he studied them a moment, thinking if he'd even seen the trees more than a few times in his life. They _were_ pretty. The small red fruits clustered together on the brittle branches and he knew from childhood experience what would happen to the inside of his mouth if he bit down on one fresh off the tree: gritty as sand and sharp enough to draw the tongue up. Older brothers were a never-ending source of creativity when it came to showing a boy the way of the world.

Gloomy, he thought to himself. It was the time of the year and the dull cast to the sky. Too much snow. He wasn't used to it. Too much snow; too much clammy damp with the snow. He could feel the rising fog coming in from the warmer territories. When it finally mixed with the cold here, it would be a freezing fog and worse than ever.

And that poor Constable had been out in it for half the day. He lifted his hand in a silent command and they walked across the sleeping garden. Sad little bits of summer resisted burying: spiky green rosemary, struggling violas and hearts-ease grew low and half-tilting pots and outdoor crockery caught thin drifts against the bottom of the walls.

Constable Swann shivered openly inside his heavy wool coat, the wider-cut winter sleeves catching the snow even on the inside whenever he lifted his large hands. When he thought the Inspector wasn't looking, he shook his arms as fastidiously as a two-yard-tall cat.

"Try putting the gloves on first." Lestrade said at last. In this bitterly cold day, he wanted to feel pity for something that could feel it back.

"Sir?" Swann flushed awkwardly behind his thick collar.

"Try putting your gloves on first, and then your coat." Lestrade put his own hands inside his pockets. They clenched coldly around his notebook and pencil. Behind them on the other side of the high brick wall and two acres' pasture, the train whistled its way to south Wales. "It seals your wrists up from the outside."

Swann thought about it. "Yes, sir."

Poor youngster. They always spent their first year wobbling between absolute exhaustion and fretting about losing their position from the smallest infraction of rules—that didn't count the horrors of fighting out their own space among the older, harder, and not-necessarily-good-influences.

The cold was sinking into the very earth around them, bending down the thin grassblades like fine hairs. Tiny ice-balls rattled and bounced over the tops of his shoes and he was grateful again for the extra price put into the leather.

"Nothing else of note, Constable?"

"No, sir." Swann's very tone of voice was apologetic. "Clear-cut, sir."

"Clear-cut." He repeated. "We can only hope so." Their soles crunched loudly over the tops of the brittle grass and occasional spots of exposed paving-stones. Behind them the fog was rolling down with the slight slope of the earth.

Before they could reach the heavy oak door, it opened from the inside. Cast iron hinges squeaked and shed rust-powder.

Chief Inspector Davids was tall enough that he had to fold himself _down_ to get through most doorways built before King Henry VIII. They gave him space as he re-lengthened his long limbs beneath the folds of his coat and tailored trousers. Unfortunately the man had to take off his hat every time.

"There you are, gentlemen." He smiled wryly from behind a face scored with weariness. Under the tin-coloured sky his skin was scarce darker. "We're all finished up here."

"I think we are too, sir." Lestrade touched his brim out of deference.

"Constable, if you wouldn't mind giving your friends a hand…"

Swann left eagerly to join his companions inside. Lestrade couldn't blame him. The inside was a horror, but it was sheltered from the outside.

He waited with slowly freezing feet as Davids closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"Let's take a walk, shall we?" He asked the younger man.

Davids led them out of the crumbling garth and down the uneven road. The soft soil of the night before had frozen to glass and they minded each step.

It was absolutely silent. Nothing chirped or sang; there was no bark of a restless dog or even the sound of a faraway horse further down the road or in the stables outlying the land before one got to London. The train was gone like a ghost. Lestrade couldn't begin to guess where the lines were if he hadn't heard it the first time.

No sound but themselves…the crunch of ice and occasional wet sound of a slip against the fog-kissed stones. And their breathing…

Lestrade burrowed into the muffler about his neck, hoping Davids would take the hint but he didn't. Despite the air the Chief Inspector was refusing to protect his lungs. He was breathing light and shallow in concession to human weakness…but that was it.

They were gone a quarter-mile before Davids finally spoke. "The Missus gave me some of the sorbs. Good and ready, she said." He pulled out a pocket-handkerchief wrapped delicately around a double-handful of small objects. "When was the last time you had one of these?"

"Years, I think." He took the top one off the pile. "We used to blet them on a wooden plank for later."

Davids made a sniffing sound that meant something amusing had just happened inside his brain.

"Penny for your thoughts."

"You'd be getting a ha'penny back." Davids told him. "Funny when you think of it...we can't eat these things until they're overripe and starting to get a little...alcoholic."

"I can't say this qualifies as imbibing on duty." Lestrade let the small fruit dissolve on his tongue. It tasted as good as he remembered; sweet as one of those fancy dates in the market but hardly as expensive.

"It just strikes my funny bone that something has to be past ripe before it's fit to eat."

"That does sound funny."

Davids put one in his own mouth. "What did you think?"

"Of the case?" Lestrade snorted to himself. "Why did they call us? Anyone could tell it was an accident."

Davids chuckled lightly. "When an unpopular man dies, his enemies want to know they won't be held responsible for it."

"True enough." Lestrade pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed at them through the thin leather. "I suppose it is part of being a public servant."

"Too often our duties aren't actually useful, dear fellow. They're just…being a sugar-pill for the public."

And Davids began to cough.

They kept walking. Lestrade stared at the frozen road the entire time, reminding himself that he had to mind his step; that the weather was turning dangerous, and night was falling.

"What weather, eh?" Davids gasped at last. His face was wet with sweat. He coughed one last time and pulled a metal flask from his pocket.

Lestrade wished it were brandy in that flask, and not medicine.

_I am not ready for this_, he thought for the thousandth time that year. _I can't be_.

"You have to wonder about November." Davids wiped his face with an icy sleeve and pulled tiny sips from the flask. "I don't think I've ever witnessed a single November that wasn't carried to extremes."

"No…I'd say you're right." Lestrade admitted. Davids had the right of it. It was a very good month for ice; for fog. For the passing over of lives…

…an unsurprising time for a man to step down from his office.

"You're quiet, Geoff."

"I'm out of sorts, I'm afraid."

"I can tell, dear fellow. But is it something you can express?"

"I don't know. This was your last case…I half-expected it to be something dramatic and bold…"

"And it wasn't." Davids chuckled ruefully. "I can't say I'm sorry. It is a wearying thing to have such a reputation. A difficult one." His lips were bright red in the growing darkness, red like the high spots upon his cheeks. "This was only my nineteenth case in five weeks. I'm leaving just in time, I think." He announced. "Before my fellows have to start carrying me."

_We would have carried you gladly._

Lestrade did not trust himself to speak of such things.

"They used to call this the Blood-Month, you know." Davids mused. "Sometimes you'll still hear one of the very oldest people use it…the time of year to cull the cattle that couldn't be fed through the winter…burn the fields and clear the pastures. And yet I never liked that name. I always liked the French word for November myself." He looked at his protégé just as he looked up in curiosity. "They called it the Month of Fog. Fitting, isn't it."

"Yes." Lestrade's gaze had dropped again, studiously concentrating on his steps.

"You'll come and see me?"

Lestrade coloured and swallowed hard. "Of course." He strangled. "Of course I will."

"Good." A smile was his reward. "You'll keep me up on the gossip, and I'll be your consultant. How does that sound?"

"That sounds perfect."

Death was walking between them, a slow, painful death that devoured the vitals from within, but it had not blocked them off yet. Davids was offering an extension to their relationship; from mentor to student to something more frail and enduring.

And Lestrade was glad. He was not ready to bury the man who had been like a father to him. Not yet.

"What a very good month for fog." Davids commented in wonder. "Just wait until the morrow, Geoff. When you wake up, the world's going to look like it's been set in diamonds. Only a winter fog can do that, you know. Bloody inconvenient as hell for us right now, but tomorrow it will be a sight to behold." He chuckled; it rattled inside his chest. "Always makes me wish I'd taken up photography. It's a frightful cold, a terrible fog…and it makes London beautiful for a few hours. That's what you'd call a conundrum."

Lestrade felt something lift off his shoulders; he knew what he could say. "A conundrum, is it?" He smiled.

"A conundrum."

"One of your favourite words."

"I know. Who will use it when I am gone?" Davids asked wistfully.

Lestrade laughed out loud. It shattered the oppressive air like a stone through glass. "I'll give it to Gregson. He likes words like that."

Davids clapped him on the back. "Come on. There's some hot tea waiting for us back at the station."


	7. Song of the Garotter

THE SONG OF THE GAROTTER

_Based on the song of that name, published in Punch, December 27, 1862_

Halloween in London is a shift of the senses; the street-lamps are examined weeks ahead of time and repaired before the holiday even though it is a guarantee that there will be more than a few smashed globes on that night of ruckus. As I was locum to a new practice in an unfamiliar street, I was somewhat surprised at the sight of the exquisite care taken by the lamplighters and repairmen. Equally surprising to me was great interest the homely Constable on the beat took upon such work. I would have thought the actions were something beneath his station.

"Good-evening, Doctor Watson." I recognized the leathery face of PC Murcher from the Lauriston Gardens Mystery as he touched his fingers to his brim. Such a gesture was not uncommon for a policeman who respected a person for wanting to aid in justice, but the courtesy still felt strange and peculiar to my sensibilities. I still think I half-expected the touching of the brim of an ugly helmet to be the crisp salute of a soldier upon another soldier.

"Good evening," he said again. "Have you been having any difficulties with seeing at night, sir? Hallowe'en is coming up on us, you know."

Out of habit I clipped my bag shut after another examination and remained on the steps. It is no small thing to hold a conversation with Constable Murcher, who owes his large, ungainly shoes to his increase in height. "That it is, but I confess I am still enough of a newcomer to be puzzled at this ritual, Constable."

His plain, honest face creased in puzzlement like my own. "Ritual, sir? They've got Halloween outside of London surely."

"I mean the street-lamps." I nodded at the metal trees in question. "I've noticed that since the first of October every lamp is being inspected as though the fate of London hinges upon the function of each and all globes."

"Ah, yes, sir." He nodded in a knowing fashion. "It's because of the nonsense coming up, you see. A good excuse for the gangs to go a-running about and causing their own mischief. They'll be planning where they want to go, sir. A lamp broken ahead of time is as good as a note in the tip-box."

"I see, Constable. That is a good point." Together we watched as the men laboured in the smoky dusk. This time of year the fog, yellow from the coal, twined with the slow-moving mists twining about the streets and down the alleys. Tonight, at sundown, the holiday would begin.

In most parts of the world, the holiday is now split in twain; Hallowe'en is considered completely separate from All-Saints and the following All-Hallows, but when I was a child most in our borough celebrated it all on the same night: Hallowe'en the first portion and All-Saints in the second portion while All-Hallows was the last before Guy Fawkes on the fifth. Only the adults were privileged to attend the festivities from beginning to end, even though we children did our best to stay awake with endless games and riddles and not a few reckless dares against our bravery.

I returned to Baker Street as I had so often in my three years of residency in London: alone, beneath the lit paths and casting strange, shifting shadows of shapeless forms roots at my feet. Howe Street was not so far for a man of my recovering constitution, and I was satisfied to see myself against a personal test, walking to see how well I would fare even though I was already tired from the day.

Hallowe'en in London is not the same as the holiday in the provincial regions. The city folk are incredulous at the notion of carving a vegetable into a lantern even if the rest of the country is doing it too. The truth is, the turnip-lantern—or mangel-wurzel, rutabaga, beet or marrow—is so past its prime it is worthless for even the sternest of soups and I have been forced as a youngster to take a hatchet to particularly recalcitrant turnips.

They are the leavings of the field; the rare crops left forgotten to grow the next year, massive and inedible. I cannot see a large one without remembering the boy within and contemplating the possibilities with a strong penny-knife.

Holmes was at home; the windows were closed but warm lamplight peeped out from the slender corners, and I could fancy the smell of his shag adding to the darkening day. To my surprise, a most unusual visitor was by our doorstep at Baker Street: a hoary old bewhiskered gentleman with a brimless hat and neatly patched clothing was pulling something from the back of his fruit-cart and presenting it for Mrs. Hudson. My landlady seemed pleased at the bundle, and finished thanking him heartily as the old nag drove away.

"There you are, Doctor Watson." She met me with a smile. "I have a fine turnip for carving if you would be in the mood for some bloodless surgery."

"If the person is inexperienced, I daresay it will not be bloodless." I smiled as I said so. "What would be your preference, Mrs. Hudson? Cheerful or glowering?"

"Neither," she responded, "for the lantern is for the souls of the wandering. Every year I choose a wistful expression, and I believe you have the skill to give me one this year."

"I will do my very best."

After depositing my coat and bag, I rolled up my sleeves and set to with a will in the warm kitchen. Bubble and Squeak was to be on our supper-table that night, and Mrs. Hudson was clearly pleased to add one more tradition to her house. It was indeed a woody old specimen—almost a chunk of wood in my hands as she saw to the teapot and copperware.

"Wistful" is not something that comes easily for carving a turnip, but I managed a lipless, gaping mouth wide and narrow below a set of eye-slits turned up slightly at the insides as if casting a mournful gaze into the hand of its bearer. After some thought, I left the visage without a nose and thought it looked better…the simplicity of the thing made it all the more powerful in a primitive language.

"Excellent." She announced. "I'll be certain to give you an extra bit of bonfire toffee for your troubles, doctor. The true toffee—none of that rubbish the Inspector carries around."

I thanked her, for I had learned that if there is one particular sweet that is close to Inspector Lestrade's heart, it is the cheap treacle-toffee sold in the less reputable sweet-shops. I cannot even call it "sweet" for "bitter" is a truer description. It seemed to be favoured by the poorer folk.

Duties finished I ascended the steps and pushed open the door ready for a warm fire and a drink to fortify the chill still lingering on my hands. Holmes was seated in his customary chair, wrapped deep within his mouse-coloured dressing-gown which suggested he was in a rare mood of contentment. I say rare because for him contentment too often means stimulation, and he will seek this even if he is weary or ill. Tonight I could easily see the source of his pleasant mood in a thick volume upon his lap; although it was closed, I doubted this strange text would have been read all the way through in one day—even by my friend. At my casual glance it would be at least eight hundred or so pages in length, and such books are usually accompanied by a second book replete with notes.

"There you are, Watson." He pulled a barely-smoking pipe from his lips and smiled at him. "I have been making myself useful today, whilst between cases. The London criminal is occasionally utterly bereft of imagination, but there are moments in our history when an example of worthy study emerges."

"Are you to have me believed a single person is within the pages of that large book, Holmes?" I joked as I poured that self-promised brandy.

"Not at all. Hundreds, Watson. Legion in the purest word. I am absorbing the logs of Newgate Prison."

"Then I wish you all the heartfelt luck of your task, Holmes." I sank to my settee, feet up by the fire. "MY day was uneventful save a few early celebrants. We may be in for a lively time on the streets."

"Pah." Holmes retorted. "What is to happen on this night that has not already happened on every other past year's example? I proclaimed the very thing to the police today when they asked if I had heard of anything in regards to the tradition."

We ate supper early that night. I confess I was not in a completely restful frame of mind. I half-wanted to explore London for myself, but I was tired out from the long walk, and the fire was compelling. I also knew that the crowds in my chosen establishments—even my club—would have a youthful air bordering on mischievous. As a physician I see too many consequences of mischief, and I did not want to inadvertently witness shenanigans tonight.

Holmes' pleasant mood continued after the final tot of brandy. He kept his thick book in his lap, and on occasion, made notes in a separate pad of paper. The extent of his absorption was clear to me when I realised he had allowed his pipe to grow cold and was absently chewing on the stem in place of smoking as he read. This good mood was only reduced a quarter till midnight, when his eyes simply failed to read the print for one last page.

"Not to worry, old fellow." I pulled my own pipe away as he sighed and shut the book. "There is always tomorrow…and a few hundred pages if I am any judge."

"Five hundred and sixty-six, to be exact."

I was still chuckling when the door to his bedroom shut.

Weary as I was, I could not claim I was ready for sleep. That slight edginess of nerve remained although I lacked the ability to concentrate on any of my books or paperwork. I supposed it was the longstanding boyish enthusiasm for the season, coupled with the excitement of the changing of the months.

No long time passed but my impression was it was closer to an hour instead of the actual quarter-hour when I at last rose to my feet, prodded the fire needlessly, and strolled to the window overlooking the street with my hands in the pockets of my dressing-gown. I call the window "Holmes' window" in my mind. It is his method of viewing the world and he does to with an excellent commentary on his lips.

Tonight the empty streets were a swirl of the deepening yellow fog; I smelt its sulphur even through the windows and a haze of streetlamps shone back at me with difficulty. I remembered how my shadow had grown to irrational proportions on my way to our rooms, and even though it had been my shadow, the loss of proportion and perspective had disquieted me as much as it would any man who finds himself haunted by a leaping and ephemeral black djinn at his feet.

It was then that I believed I knew the true depths of the meaning of the word, "to be shadowed." I shivered slightly, and thought to our not-so-distant past when the shadow was supposed to be an extension of the soul itself; and to be shadowed was to be haunted.

It was in this contaminated mood, so different from that of my friend's, that I saw the staggering drunk lurch his way across the pavement.

He had been dressed for some sort of party, that I could tell for his eveningwear was undoubtedly fine if battered from too much enthusiasm. A flask of that enthusiasm still held within his grip and unsteady as he was his grip never faltered around the metal and he would stop at the nearest street-lamp, place his back against that metal trunk, and though he was easily twelve houses away from me, I saw how his head fell back and met the down-turning mouth of the drink.

Drink; drank; drunk. He was truly a drunk in the sense of the word, and his long, lean arms lifted, wiping the cloth across his mouth. He pushed himself away from the glowing pool of light and shambled closer to 221B. He stopped at the mid-way point and repeated his ritual; I could see him better in the mist and fancied I heard him sigh in satisfaction.

He was singing. It was not a tune with which I was familiar, and I have heard many in my new life within London. But the more I heard, the more chilled and unsettled I felt:

_OH, Meet me by moonlight alone,  
And then I will give you the hug,  
With my arm round your neck tightly thrown,  
I'm as up to the work as a Thug.  
Behind you I softly will creep,  
And taking you quite unawares,  
On my prey like a tiger I'll leap;  
If I happen to choke you, who cares?  
I'm out with a ticket of leave,  
Which by gulling the chaplain I got,  
And I'm free to maim, murder and thieve,  
For a cove he must live, must he not?  
So meet me by moonlight alone,  
Kind stranger, I beg and entreat,  
And I'll make all your money my own,  
And leave you half dead in the street._

He sang this several times, his drunken voice as wavering as his feet, and I thought that his throat, narrow and replete with bone and cartilage, ought to be a temptation for any garrotter even if he could overlook the seeming taunt of the song. His clothing was simply too fine. I could see the sprig of the hothouse flower hanging off the lapel within his open coat.

_"And I'll make all your money my own…"_

He went on his way. The fog swallowed him up in its yellow arms.

I turned away from the glass long moments later. The man had been a fright, but in some strange way he had broken the spell about me. I was no longer half-ready for some sort of excitement. That moment had come…and passed.

I was ready to rest…tomorrow would be another day.

And in the wake of Hallow's-Eve, that would be the day of All Saints.


	8. For All The Saints

For All the Saints

Based by the Hymn for All Saints, and the original music used for the words.

Watson complains that I too often dwell upon the humdrum as if it was an actual failing—something analogous to his aforementioned crack in the lens. I fear there is some truth to his affectionate criticism. While I make no plaints that the world must follow my own suit—it would be dull truly—my particular needs are set upon the things in life that are out of the ordinary. At times I am vexed enough to feel a nearly personal sense of offense at the limitations the human brain places upon itself. Too many times I am reminded of a particularly stupid animal that remains within a cage because it has never noticed the door is open.

Enough people in this world thrive and take comfort in the ordinary—indeed; I suspect they draw serenity out of it. But I am not so marked. Nor, I should add, is Watson for all that he can navigate a perilous crossing between the ordinary and the extra-ordinary. He never stays in either land for long, and that is but one source of his many strengths. His observations are reliable as a result, but never dull.

On Hallowe'en Night I had little faith in the creative machinations of the criminal mind—nothing is new under the sun nine times out of ten, and once a criminal is given a blanket opportunity, such as the cover of the chaos of the festivities, they appear to turn lax in their efforts, taking for granted all will be well if not easy. It was somewhat ironic that I was celebrating in my own way with the proofs of my attitude: a record of Newgate Prison from its earliest inception to the present day.

There are treasures to be found within minutiae; I share this interest with my brother despite our other differences and I had been scouring the pages all day, seeking the small and surprising facts and figures. Such journeys can be as exciting as any treasure hunt, and I was already satisfied at the quality of my information before Watson returned from his practice.

October in London is no more comparable to the rest of the year; one part of the city may rain while the other remains shrouded in a fog that smells of the Thames. On this day it was drier than expected; the glass was high and the windows had failed to collect its usual tribute of dust and cinder from the stacks. To me this suggested potential nonsense among the lower-order criminal, for they seem at times to be as lazy as water against gravity; if the night would be mild, the London police would soon be swamped with the thousands of annoying ways a small child with ruckus on the mind can create. A child can often be far more creative, and devastating, than a grown adult.

Still, I had no wish to be out on this particular night; there was always the chance I might happen into one of my Irregulars doing something to support his family by disapproving means. Watson too, carried no more than a slight wistful air to his countenance over supper, and did not return outside. Before midnight I surrendered my pipe and book and went to my rooms for a much-needed sleep.

Hallowe'en, to be honest, never held much attraction. All my life I had been more interested in All Saint's, for the good reason that my French ancestors have instilled within me a respect for Catholicism, and for the fact that I enjoy a good story.

Morning dawned in a hushed quiet for the year, and a late-rising damp settled against the bricks. Watson emerged for breakfast with a stiff leg and a matching expression. He reached for the coffee first and ate before he could move past the most basic of pleasantries.

"Good-morning to you, Holmes." He had said upon crossing the threshold.

"Good All Saints to you, Watson." I answered. _"For all the saints, who from their labours rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed!"_

It was my first smile of the day.

After most of his plate was cleared he leaned back and began again. "A favoured holiday and reason to celebrate, to be sure. Have you ever wondered, Holmes, about the…_neatness _of such a holy day as this following the heels upon something as base and profane as Hallowe'en?"

"Neatness? I suppose that it only stands to reason, my dear fellow, that after night comes the day. One cannot exist without the other—and that is not my explanation for Dualism, I shall have you know!"

He laughed out loud, no doubt to my expression more than my actual words. "Do you, with all your fascination with the darkness of the season, prefer All Saints over Hallowe'en?"

"Of course I do, Watson. I do not celebrate many holidays but I do observe them. Hallowe'en is a crying excuse to cause trouble, but All Saints is a reason to celebrate the opposite: I make my career out of crime, but I aim to aspire higher and I conceit myself that my work helps others aspire along with me."

I passed him the last of the bread. In concession to the season, Mrs. Hudson had passed along cinnamon-butter and Watson was more than content to take the last of it over my commands. "All Souls is the halfway mark, if you will. The profane is in Hallowe'en—with I will allow the joyousness and abandon that is absolutely necessary for the occasion. The second point, All Saints, today, is to commemorate those who have gone past the profane and joined the coveted halls of the sacred."

"All thanks to a rather remarkable man himself, Leo The Wise." Watson waved his sweetmeat as a conductor would a baton. "Who was told by the Pope he could not commemorate a fine new church he had built in honour of his wife, to his wife."

"I daresay, Watson, it is unlike you not to mention a remarkable lady by name."

He met that with an amused gleam. "The Empress Theophano, Holmes, has had acres of praise heaped upon her head, but I daresay being the pious and generous person that she was, she would stand to go without adoration for one day…"

"But not this day of all days!" I exclaimed in turn. Watson can truly stimulate my thoughts, my humours, even my very philosophies for he can pull a question out of an issue from a side-corner or make note of something that has been overlooked…or taken for granted. In this case he had compelled me to do something I rarely do—defend a woman that needs no defending.

"Watson, surely you must admit the story behind the Day of All Saints appeals to the romantic storyteller within you."

"That it does." He assured me. "I can hear my old chaplain as clear as day: "Because the Empress was so pious and generous, her death was a great source of mourning by Leo the Wise…"

Unlike too many story-tellers of my acquaintance—and indeed, what appears to be the same across the world—Watson does not slide his gaze inward when he is remembering. Instead, his gaze turns outward, the way a telescope suddenly focuses on something far away with such skill that the object viewed appears to be within the room and not on the other side of the solar system. With this gift he can only make his audience feel the urgency of the story he is telling.

"Leo the Wise wanted to honour his wife, and so he built a church thinking to dedicate it after her. Politics disapproved, and he was informed such an idolatrous action was impossible. Therefore, he dedicated the church instead to All Saints, or, all the righteous, because he knew without a doubt his wife would be honoured with the rest."

I was about to add the rest, but he openly grinned at me and lifted a finger. "And the Empress herself was moved for her own commemoration on December 16th."

"You know your history, Watson."

His response was halted momentarily, and we both turned to the same time to the curtained window overlooking Baker Street. The chorales had turned out in full force in their Sunday Best, those who were unable to work or begged off from the factories and their usual labours for a brief time.

"_But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;_

_The saints triumphant rise in bright array;_

_The King of glory passes on His way._

_Alleluia, Alleluia!"_

"Ah," I exclaimed. "Fortunate is London, to hear Barnby's music to such fine words. Did you know he has made it his life's work to bring Sacred Music to the commoners of London?"

"That would explain why we are listening to him now." Watson exclaimed softly. His eyes shone with the deep enjoyment of the sight; no one in the group looked as though they could spare a single day away from a wage, but the rags and smeary faces on the shabby-genteel were offset by the glow in the eyes that comes from a true spiritual experience.

"It is no great wonder the man was appointed conductor of the Royal Albert Hall." Watson said as if to himself; but he knows the sharpness of my ears.

We share obsessions with our music; I can play and listen, but the listening is all on Watson's side. I have often wondered what instrument could be his translator, for such an invention would be extraordinary.

"_From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,_

_Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,_

_And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:_

_Alleluia, Alleluia!"_

"When it comes to Barnby's work…I cannot help but wonder if there is some sort of cleverness hidden within the theme."

I expected more of the same, but Watson is not the easiest man to predict. A thought came to him after this simple statement, and with it the shadow across his eyes.

"By Jove, Holmes. I _am_ glad today is here."

I am easily distracted from food when there are so many more interesting things in this world. "Did you sleep poorly, Watson?"

He did not reply at first. Watson is an easy man to read—shamelessly so. But when it comes to his hidden layers, they may as well be on the other side of the moon.

"No." He said to me slowly. "And I do not understand."

That was unusual. "What about not sleeping poorly is strange to you? I would think the combination of a long walk from Howe Street, a brisk day, a filling supper by a warm fire and a bit of brandy before bed would be the infallible remedy against poor sleep?"

"I half-expected some sort of excitement last night…because of the date." He explained. "When it did not happen, I went to bed and Holmes, I did not even dream." He shook his head as if to himself. "I am not used to that, Holmes."

"You are prepared to dream upon demand?" I asked despite myself. Watson is sensitive upon the subject of himself, and I do my best to avoid probing him in personal matters.

When posed with a question he does not expect, Watson's first reaction is to frown as he thinks it over. "Not precisely," he informed me. "Though I would be interested in speaking with any man who claims to possess that ability! No, Holmes. It was to all appearances a restless, subtle night…which is not the sort of atmosphere I normally find rest in. Which is why I am glad, as I stated before, the night has passed, day has dawned, and a brighter festival is upon us."

"That is completely within the grasp of reason." I assured him. "A fitting attitude for the first day of November, is it not?"

"As usual, Holmes, you are absolutely correct." Something cleared upon his honest face; clouds that the backlight of the morning window had hidden from my initial glance. "It is fitting."

"Then I suggest we celebrate it in our own way, for it is a fine Thursday, you have no duties with your locum, and I can spare my studies until we have completed a walk about London to view the results of the night's bacchanal while listening to the proofs of better things upon the cobblestones."

"That," he approved, "is precisely what the doctor himself would have ordered."

I would have liked to ask him about his mood that still lingered, thin as a trailing cobweb, but cobwebs are strong for all their deceptive delicacy. Watson considers me a most interesting subject, but when it comes to himself he may as well be blind and deaf and dumb.

Which, I would argue, is just as well for Watson has little need to ponder himself. He understands who and what he is for the most part even if his surface actions are a puzzle to him. It is a challenge to my skills to draw him out and practice the study of his own thoughts and motives, just as it is a challenge for Watson to draw me out.

Friendships have been built upon poorer clay than this.

"Outside, Watson, and we shall see what Man has wrought upon our fair city."


	9. Soul Cake Soul Cake

_Soul Cake, Soul Cake_

Inspector Bradstreet felt as though his eyelids had been packed with sand—or more likely in this city, black grains of frosty soot. Lestrade and Bradstreet looked no better than he felt in the thin dawn.

About them the Constables appeared to move about without rule, but there was a pattern to their steps throughout the cemetery. They were searching for the smallest of clues to last night's activities: stolen goods believed scattered in a grassy graveyard.

No one ever for one minute believed it was a simple matter to be a policeman.

"It's like a hunt for the four-leaf clover." Sergeant Hopkins had summed wearily. "White opals and white amber in a graveyard covered with frost?"

Hopkins had only been too right, Bradstreet thought. And most of the tombstones were white too.

"Let's see if we've got this straightened out." Gregson pulled out his cigarettes and made a smoke. "The gang went across Lestrade's stamping ground _first_, and _then_ cut across with Bow…that would put 'em directly across Brown's path because he's right smack in the middle…then they doubled back to Brown's—we think—and spent all of six-and-thirty minutes in Lestrade's beat before heading for the Thames and then, somehow, lost them until Bobby the Bobby found 'em in St. Mary's."

Bradstreet grimaced. "Be it on your head if you tease Constable Roberts about his name, Tobias."

Gregson grinned around the bite of his tobacco. It was just idle chatter; a reliable way of defusing the sort of tension that came only with frustration.

"Other than that, did you have a pleasant All Saints?"

"Pleasant enough…why didn't I see you in church?"

"Possibly because you were seeing me out here." Gregson waggled his horrible fag at Bradstreet. "Oh, look. He's found something."

Lestrade had been talking quietly with two of the Constables. Replete with unheard orders, the men nodded crisply and parted ways.

"Who has the report?" Lestrade asked. "Oh—Sergeant, run that by us again please?"

Lestrade rarely had to listen to an accounting more than once, but as tired as they were it made good sense.

Hopkins pulled out his little notebook and obligingly paged up to the first entry. "It started out with a group of street-urchins called the Lanterns. They've been under suspicion in the past by Constables Makepeace and Young for being under contract with the older gangs all the way to the top of the shelf." He pulled out his grease pencil and made a note in the margin. "The Lanterns are usually led by an urchin by the name of Jimmy."

"Jimmy led his sawed-off army through a bloody quarter of West London last night starting at the dusk, and their presence was noted in areas that saw break-ins for small valuables while the owners were out a-partying. The last job was Mrs. Blair's where the small gang broke off from the adult gang—and they were probably under orders to do so."

"Just when you think you've seen it all." Bradstreet said wearily. "A group of children hired to make note of the empty houses when they go door to door for treats." St. Mary's graveyard was overgrown, but there were benches placed here and there. The Runner took the nearest one. "We've been up from sundown to sunup chasing these children when we ought to be finding out who did the actual breaking-in of Mrs. Blair's Shop."

"We _tried_ that, Roger. It took long enough to track and catch 'em all _here_, and they aren't wanting to talk to us." Gregson spoke softly. He was generally kinder to Bradstreet than he was Lestrade; they shared the common bond of Methodism which was rare for London. Lestrade's half-hearted Anglicanism sat poorly with the better-schooled Gregson, who saw that church as hopelessly old-fashioned and hidebound.

Lestrade let it all pass; he was straightening his shoulders and peering down the stone steps to the ivy-choked gate. The others turned; PC Crookshanks was hurrying up as fast as his heavy uniform could allow. At the grim expression pinioned between chin-strap and brim, their hearts sank a bit further.

"Coroner's report, sir." The skeletal man tapped his brim in respect. "Drs. Roanoke and Pennywraith both agree it was a heart attack what brought the old lady to die. They must have pulled her necklace off while she was on the floor."

Bradstreet muttered an oath. "All we have to do now is prove that she had a fatal heart attack when she came into her shop and found it being looted by a filthy gang of bludgers."

"It can't be that hard to prove." Lestrade said wearily. He'd been up longer than any of them, called to duty to settle what had been an accidental death on the tracks of Paddington. "She was found halfway in the doorway."

"What worries me is, will the coroner's report concede that these roughs frightened her to death?" Bradstreet pulled out his tiny stone pipe (already packed) and borrowed Gregson's tip for a light.

"If they do, it's the death penalty for certain." Lestrade spoke sharply. He stopped to rub his forehead. "What we've got to do it prove they gulled those boys into doing their dirty work for them." He stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground, deep in thought.

Bradstreet smoked heavily for a few moments. He needed to think. It was a shame Lestrade was such a wound-tight watchspring. He couldn't even sit down to smoke a cigar unless he considered himself already on a break. "All we need to do, is link the missing evidence—the necklace—to the Lanterns. Once we do that, we can wring a confession from those boys to the names of the Thuggees what rooked them into this foul business."

"You need to do it, Lestrade." Gregson pointed out. "Tell them we know the gang gave them Mrs. Blair's necklace as payment—tell them we know it forces them to be an accomplice and make certain they understand that their masters are just using them to take the blame for later."

Lestrade's gaze sharpened. "You sound like you think this is Addicock's job."

"Got to be. Blackmailing children to do his work is like him all over, and he's just been out of the Slaughterhouse1 a fortnight."

"Why didn't we get word from Surrey that he was discharged? How did you know?" Bradstreet wondered.

"Heard it from a mouth just the other day." Gregson confessed. "And then all this went to pieces."

"If we can't prove Addicock—or his spiritual heir—did this, it will be the Lanterns that go up before the court." Lestrade started pacing.

"They haven't hanged children in a while, Lestrade."

"No, but a boy as young as ten can be sent to prison!" Lestrade snapped.

Lestrade had a few years on them; could remember when five-year old boys were sent to prison with hardened criminals. Such children only grew worse, not better; they grew up as slaves to older inmates, and gained an education in things best left unsaid.

Bradstreet and Gregson knew when to keep their mouths shut.

"Where in the _world_ could those boys have hidden the necklace?" Hopkins bravely shifted the conversation to the present. "Chances are they broke up the pieces…would they have swallowed them?"

"They don't act like they're afraid of a purgative." Gregson pointed out. "Even when the matrons got it in 'em. And if they'd hidden anything internally, we would have gotten a wire from the station by now."

"Blast…"

"How many boys are we talking about?" Gregson puffed smoke. "Thirteen or fourteen…but we only grabbed the eight."

"Just a moment…" Hopkins scratched at his itchy uniform and flipped a few pages. "The boys we did nick were fellows by the name of Irish…Whitfield…Gray, Jackson, Turner, Fisher, Jenkins, Harvey…and another Harvey, probably a brother or cousin." He tapped his pencil. "Constable Makepeace and Young said the four we missed were probably the Brett Cousins—one of which is Jimmy the Leader. They're the oiliest of the lot, because they're without a doubt the fastest of runners."

"They passed the necklace off to the Bretts." Bradstreet mused. "Bet you anything."

Constable Makepeace had come up behind them. "Beggin' your pardon, sirs, but the Bretts are probably why they would up here in the first place. They're always hanging about the cemetery."

Lestrade slowly lifted his head up in interest. Bradstreet asked it. "Any reason why, Constable? A graveyard isn't the usual place for a young lad needing to earn money for his belly."

"They have some kinfolk somewhere up here, sir. Baldwins, I believe."

Lestrade galvanized. "Where?" He asked sharply. "What part of the cemetery?"

"French side, sir. Close to the grapevines."

"Did anyone search the French side?"

Lestrade took off like a shot.

Bradstreet and Gregson spent a single look at each other, and followed in pursuit.

Bradstreet was unfamiliar with large portions of the St. Mary's graveyard. It was a large plot, deliberately overgrown to remind the living that the way of all things meant impermanence of the physical; the only permanence was in the Afterlife and the condition of the soul. He trotted after Gregson, noting that the stones were getting smaller and smaller the deeper they went; Sword-lilies and the sharp blades of Orris gleamed against the slowly-melting hoarfrost until it looked as though the entire world was weeping with tears of glass. Their breath steamed like locomotives in the air; Gregson stopped because Lestrade had stopped and switched tracks to the right without warning, ducking under a rope of grapevine. They heard the crack of brittle twigs underfoot. Gregson sighed—almost grumbled—and bowed his head to dip under the thick rope. A dried raisin fell on Bradstreet's hat and rolled down his collar. He grumbled too.

"Lestrade, slow down for us normally-sized gents, would you!" Gregson bellowed.

"You could stand to drop a few pounds, Gregson!" Lestrade snapped back. He stopped again and yanked up a dirty glass bottle from the grass. "Hmph!"

"Thanks, Lestrade, but I buy from Nestle." Gregson paid the bottle, cemented with leaves and grassblades by a coating of frost, an askance look.

Lestrade sighed. "Gregson, the Bretts brought the bottle with them."

"How do you know it was the Bretts and not someone else?" Bradstreet panted.

"Because it was All Saints!" Lestrade shouted at them. "Come on! I want to see if I'm right about this?"

"For that matter, so do we." Gregson swore and stepped inside the small clearing.

Bradstreet blinked at the tiny copse. The stones were small and humble, very poor…but every stone had the luxury of a carved flower reservoir. Tuppenny violets burst over the sides of the stone dishes, but instead of water they were drinking milk.

"Dear God." Lestrade blurted. He yanked his hat off and dropped it on a hanging branch.

Gregson saw it before Bradstreet did. "They poured milk on the stones?" He scowled.

Lestrade turned then, and his glare was silent and venomous. "It was for All Saints." He snarled. "Even if those boys didn't have a single groat to rub, they would have done whatever they could to get milk for their dead." He turned his back and strode heavily to the nearest stone, taking care not to walk over the dead as he did so. As they watched, he sighed heavily, and dipped his finger into the half-frozen milk filled to the brim of the little reservoir.

"Oh, dear."

Bradstreet blinked as the first of the opals glinted freckles of red and green light within the pool of milk in Lestrade's palm.

-

The case was concluded…of a sorts.

The missing stones, both white amber and white opal, were clear matches for the pieces left scattered on the floor of poor Mrs. Blair's little dress shop. With the evidence, it would be a simple matter to persuade the Lanterns to produce the names of the adults who had set them up for the blame.

Lestrade was a horror throughout the entire wrap-up of the case, even if it meant Addicock really was the perpetrator of the crime and this time it looked as though he would be behind bars for the very last time. He told Gregson in no uncertain terms that he wanted nothing more to do with the case and to leave his name out of it. While Gregson was always ready to take credit for a success, it left him feeling cheated to have another notch given to him, and that left him wanting to snipe a bit.

Bradstreet promised Gregson on a stack of invisible Bibles he'd have the truth of the matter out, and bravely pushed his way into Lestrade's office.

Lestrade was seated at his desk, his pencil aimlessly drafting long, smooth lines of no apparent pattern on a scrap of paper. He looked up without a word.

"How'd you know?" Bradstreet sat down in front of him on the other side of the desk.

"I didn't until Jimmy's family-name came out."

"Brett…" Bradstreet felt two important cogs click together in his mind. "Breton?"

"Horribly unimaginative." Lestrade agreed with a nod. "But so's Baldwin."

"Baldwin sounds Irish."

"It is. There's a colony of Baldwins over there…I'm probably related to them somewhere." Lestrade lowered his pencil and laced his fingers together with a sigh. In the hard gaslight he looked utterly worn down. "The Lanterns are all orphans, aren't they?"

"I think so." Bradstreet was surprised. "How come you so?"

"Because the parents would have seen to the gravestones themselves…and they would have done it tonight." Lestrade sighed. "Flowers for All-Saints…and Milk or Holy Water libations on All Souls…that's tonight. But they only had that one night to work with…one night to get what they needed. So they agreed to work for Addicock, knowing they could get enough to buy some milk and tuppenny flowers."

Bradstreet winced. "They put that milk on the stones instead of in their own bellies."

"Their parents wouldn't have wanted stolen milk on their graves, Roger."

"Still…"

"The dead ask for very little, Roger." Lestrade's voice was barely heard. "Only one night out of the year."

Bradstreet shuddered at a chill his coat could not deflect. "As you say." He managed. "A violet and a bit of milk wouldn't be too much to ask for." He burrowed into his coat. "Those poor boys."

"I think…I think they'll be all right, Roger."

"So sure?"

"They didn't want a necklace with a dead woman's blood on it. They took it to their family's stones so the dead would pass judgment on it." For the first time that day, Lestrade reached for a cigarette. "They've accepted our arrests as that judgment…I think we'll get nothing but cooperation from them now."

Bradstreet nodded. "The clothes fit, Geoffrey, but the cloth is bad."

"Yes." Lestrade smoked some more without saying anything for a while. "But it will be better."

"You sound very sure of that."

"All Souls follows All Saints."

"Geoff…Methodists only observe All Saints."

"Huh." The little man grunted at him. It wasn't quite a criticism…really…"All Souls is for all the souls, Roger. Not just the saintly ones." His lips suddenly twisted in a smile. "Which is just as well…I can't keep track of the saints any more than I can the train off Leeds."

Bradstreet's answering smile was interrupted by a tap on the door. A clerk leaned in with a small paper bag in his hands, smelling of nutmegs. "Here you are, Mr. Lestrade."

"Thank you, Tom." Lestrade picked up the bag and checked the contents. "Well, I'm off to see to those boys. Are you headed home?"

"Soon…what do you want to see them for?"

"Wouldn't be the holiday without a bag of souling cakes…and I doubt even the Matrons will have filled their bellies up all the way just yet."

Bradstreet was still trying to think of something to say when Lestrade he found himself standing on the steps of Scotland Yard alone. The wind was picking up for the evening along the streets, and with it, scraps of paper lanterns and toys made for Hallowe'en were drifting leaflike into the gutters.

He was ready for home. Hazel would have a large pot of stew off the boil with hot bread. She would be clustered up with their children and the ones who were "just happening" to visit. She'd ask where Geoffrey was.

Back at the gaol, passing out a bag of cakes to a gang of boys.

_Cakes, did you say? What sort of cake would Geoffrey bear?_

_A special sort of cake, love_. Bradstreet crammed his peaked cap firmly across his brow as the wind tried to pop it off. _A soul cake._

_And what sort of heathen cake would that be, Roger Thomas Bradstreet?_

_Each cake stands for a soul lost, Coll. A baked prayer. If you eat one, it brings a soul, somewhere, closer out of Purgatory and to Heaven._

_It sounds like Our Geoffrey's turning into a Sin-Eater, Roger…_

_That he does, dearest…that he does…_

The Runner straightened his broad shoulders and tightened the lines of his frogged coat.

A knot of children ran by as wildly as the leaves and paper-scraps skirling about his feet. They were better fed than the Lanterns. They were healthier, and their cheeks were pink against the wind even if their clothes were shabby.

And they had strong, healthy lungs for canting.

_Soul, Soul, a soul cake!  
I __pray thee__, good missus, a soul cake!  
One for Peter, two for Paul,  
three for Him what made us all!  
Soul Cake, soul cake, please good missus, a soul cake.  
An apple, a pear, a plum, or a cherry, anything good thing to make us all merry.  
One for Peter, one for Paul, & three for Him who made us all._

They were gone like the litter in the streets, as if invisible hard-ups had collected it all for a bonfire to keep warm.

Bradstreet kept walking.


	10. A Nation Made of Ghosts

_Victorian London is known for its charities and progressive attempts to help the poor...but even when the charities were struggling to make ends meet the first problem was getting the people they were trying to reach...to come and accept this help. A "recruiter" had to be creative as well as careful, and the police were quite good at being silent allies in trying to make the world a better place._

-

"Hold on! Hold on Here!"

It isn't easy to shout with authority when each hand is full of a furiously squirming youngster's collar, and hoping against hope that the worn-down cloth of the boys stays put.

The voice, however, does its job and the double-handful of small furies subsides.

The cause of the fight becomes clear at the edge of the lamp-light inside the gutter: broken crockery leaks a watery hot broth with the faint scent of salted bacon. A stray dog overlooks propriety—they can smell a copper—and slinks over to lick at the puddle before it drains its way to the Thames.

"I was taking it home to me mum," the smallest boy begins blubbering. By looks of things, he hasn't eaten a good meal in a fortnight. "It was my aunt's pot. Now it's broken!"

"I didn't mean to knock him down!" The larger boy is still cherry red from fury. He knows there's trouble, and lots of it. But he's furious that someone would think he'd trip up another one of his fellows and make him spill his supper. "Tolly's lying!"

"Tolly's angry, young master Jones." Lestrade gives Tolly a single shake to underscore his point. "Angry as you are if not more. He's lost the bacon-water his aunt was sending him so his mum could at least flavour up the cabbage tonight and the pot is broken. He'll get a boxing for that alone!"

And Jones, all nine years of him, crumples up and bursts into tears.

A PC wanders by each part of London every fifteen minutes. It is at this point that PC Murcher arrives.

"Would you be needing a hand, sir?" He asks politely.

Good old Murcher. "Would you know where these fellows live, Constable?"

Murcher pays each sniffing, leaky-eyed urchin a look that is loud in its silence. "On t'other side of the bridge, sir. Good little fellows for the most part." As he speaks, the big man stretches his white-gloved fingers out in a subtle signal in the code the policemen keep to themselves: No man in the house. Another move of the fingers to look like the letter N: Newgate.

No man in the house can sometimes mean a good thing—they've both hauled in a messy drunkard or some other piece of spiritual scum for breaking the hundreds of laws, knowing his household will breathe a sigh of relief and sleep without fear a night or two while he sits warm in the gaol and eats a filling meal.

But that's the short-term. Families need a man as much as they need a mother. Homes without a figurehead mean the children are mocked by their own, avoided, and silently blamed for their lacking. Word will get out about the broken pot and lost broth. It will be their fault and then some, poor boys, the pity will be on thick with the trowel, no father to teach them right from wrong or even how to carry a pot.

Jones and Tolly are sobbing for more than a broken pot now.

Lestrade weighs his options for a moment, and Murcher trades a knowing look with him. There's no actual rank between them; Lestrade's just one of the few who tested up and can do his own share without a uniform, while Murcher is one of the even fewer who is content to do his share within that uniform until he dies. The younger men call them "old soldiers" and never dream this is their own fate someday.

"I suppose we'll have to hire them a day earlier, Constable." He says.

"It looks like, sir."

The boys stop their blubbering in stages. They aren't sure what's going on except people are making plans about them.

"What about it, gentlemen?" Lestrade thinks its safe enough to let them go; they've stopped trying to lunge for each other. "A bit of a job for you both. We can make part of the pay a new pot." One without a crack in the lid, he thinks to himself.

Tolly recovers his voice first. "What sort of job, sir?" His suspicion is understandable; it's the police who sent away his father to Newgate in the first place, even though they all know he's there for a reason.

"Deliveries to invalided policemen." Lestrade reaches into his pocket almost absently, and two sets of eyes sink into the cloth. "It's a charity we have; we try to deliver on our own as much as we can but there's only so many of us about, you know."

"Even less now." Murcher adds almost soundlessly.

Lestrade's eyes flinch a bit upon him; someone told him the bad news while he was on his beat. They shouldn't have; news that bad can take a man's mind off his work, and that can lead to a fatal mistake.

"How about it, boys? A bob a week running short deliveries? There's a chance you'll get a tip for a good job if your customer can afford it, and there's more chances to get jobs from there. The men are invalided; they can't do a lot of things you can do simple—pick up the newspaper, set the table, load the coal up, basket-up the laundry, that sort of thing."

A shilling a week is one-tenth of a pound…and one-twentieth of what their fathers could hope to make on honest work; it's enough of a lure for a boy trying to be the man in the man's absence.

Three out of four people in London have never even handled a pound coin—some wouldn't even recognize it. Lestrade pulls out a florin almost absently; it's the full value of two shillings, and he's doing this deliberately. The boys got into this mess together; he wants to see if they can work together.

Their eyes sink into the florin for all they're worth. He fancies they've even stopped breathing for a jot.

"I broke the pot." Jones says in a small voice. "So he ought to get more than half."

Good lad. Lestrade almost smiles at him. Murcher does; he can afford the loosening of emotions.

"We'll work it out." Lestrade promises. "Can either of you fellows read?"

"Some."

"Good. That'll help you there." He knows that 'some' probably means the boys are as illiterate as tree-stumps but they get by with the reading of cues and signals. They're sharp readers of character, these street boys. Sharper than most grown men. It won't be hard to get them to see the value of knowing what their own names look like if they don't already; once they see there's a card at the chapel with tally-marks on it for good jobs and the black squiggles on top mean them…well the letters ought to follow like raindrops.

"Constable," Lestrade looks to old Murcher. "Would you happen to know if Sister Sarai is working at Brother Jerome's chapel tonight?"

"That she is, sir." Murcher says firmly. "And she's been cooking all day over a pot of rutabagas and bacon."

"It's the first of the month…chances are they haven't sold all the cooking pots just yet." Lestrade pauses and gives the now-mesmerized children a stern look. "That's another thing you might want to do for a few pence. The chapel sells tinware and cookware to make ends meet and pay for their soups. For every bit sold, the seller gets to keep a portion for himself. Pay on commission, not by the hour or day." He waits for a moment. "You can start tonight by taking home a pot of broth each to your folks. If you agree to that, it commits you to work tomorrow. Can you do that?"

Yesses and head-bobs worthy of a Chinaman. Lestrade makes a point of passing the florin to Murcher. "He'll hold that for you until this time next week. Now. Take this—" He rips off two sheets from his notebook and writes in his shorthand on each. "To the chapel and make certain it's Sister Sarai who gets this. She'll set you both off with a pot and something in it for tonight. Constable Murcher will send word to your families so they know to expect you both home a bit later."

They watch the boys scarper off, papers clutched in none-too clean fingers. Sister Sarai will see to it they get those hands washed—and faces and necks and ears—when they start delivering. Once they realize she gives her clean workers more food…the results will be utterly voluntary and willing.

"Finally." Murcher says when they're alone. "I've been trying to get them into wages even before their dads were put up for stealing. But their dads made 'em so afraid of a Bobby…they run off as soon as they see something blue."

"Well, we will just try our blue best, won't we?" A quote from old Davids makes them smile even on a bad day. "What's the situation, Murcher?"

"Still the same. Crime's all over the place acros't, but mostly among the older gents. Lord, sir, and forgive me if s'blasphemy, but half of them don't even know anything outside day-labour. They don't know the difference between a delivery in a warehouse and being told to go steal something."

"Lead-babies." Lestrade sighs. "Born afflicted from what their parents did in the pottery-fields…they can grow up and have children of their own but they're still wrong in the head and nothing can cure them."

"No, sir. Nothing can."

"And that leaves the children to be the adults…" Lestrade rubs at his forehead a moment. The chapel is always in need of the sort of work these boys can do…always. Perhaps if these two start…their brothers will follow…and their sisters join the school…

How can anyone help someone who doesn't exist? There wouldn't be any paper to prove a birth, or a parent…and there were thousands of them, invisible against the census and reports and statistics…enough to people their own nation.

A nation of ghosts that walked and talked and acted and moved just like the rest of the living.

"If I had a week…just one damned week to concentrate on that side of the river…"

"We all've made that prayer, sir. And more than once."

"What about their families?"

"They each have a mother, and there's eight brothers and sisters between 'em, plus the occasional aunt or granny on a visit between the relatives. They borrow a brazier to cook their food on, so they're better off than most, and for the most part they try to do the right thing. Least they spend what they got on food more than gin…even if gin might keep them from getting the water sickness. It's the menfolk who are weak in both families."

"Men can do strange things if they think they should." Lestrade sighs. "With or without getting brain-addled from lead."

"Too right." Murcher agrees, and it's clear he's thinking of the suicide.

"How about Robinson?" Lestrade puts his hands in his pockets. "Anyone to feed?"

"No, sir…at least, not any more. His parents both died within six months of each other." Murcher fiddles about with his lantern a moment. "I suppose being alone got to him."

"It can do that." Lestrade agrees under his breath. "I'm sorry you heard on your beat."

Murcher shrugs almost to himself. "He seemed just fine yesterday. Cheerful, like. I suppose he was…thinking ahead."

"I suppose. Thank God Brother Jerome's doing the services." The man remembers too well his own days as a policeman; he won't condemn a man to hellfire for taking his own life. His approach to the self-crime was that the person was not right in the head and thusly in need of prayers.

"I suppose I ought to get word to their folks." Murcher pockets the coin. "And while I'm there…I'll see what I can see."

Lestrade nods. The poor and the half-witted are easy marks for criminals who want a gull to do their work and take their blame for them…and the pottery-workers across the river qualify as both.

"I'll go with you." Lestrade tightens his hard-crowned bowler in reflex. It can hold its shape if a man stomps on it; it ought to hold up against a flying brick or whatever some brain-damaged lout thinks will service.

"Thank you, sir."

"Not at all. Two eyes ought to see as fast as one if there's any contraband in those shacks."

"What do we do if we see anything, sir?"

"Nothing for the moment. They're just the gulls." They fall into step together. The wind over the bridge is picking up; it smells of the ocean for a moment. "A few weeks of friendly chapel-instruction and those boys just might put two and two together on their own. They have a chance to do something for themselves…problem is, they don't know it yet."

"No and that's the truth." Murcher lifts his lantern to cast out the puddle of light before their steps. From behind his shadow under the street-lamps looms frightening and black: The ominous mixed with the encouraging.

Another night for a policeman.


	11. The Ferryman

_Dear Martin,_

_You were the first hope of the family, with such a combination of both parents inside you! You surprised your father to look so much like him. He was alone when growing up; the only one who favoured his dear mother. His brothers mocked him for his differences, and when he worries about you at times for how you wish to live your life, understand that is part of his reason. He doesn't worry about you the way he does your brother; I'm certain you've noticed that. He has a different sort of worrying when his firstborn is concerned._

_But, more importantly than your stamp, you have his silent way of doing things. Does that make sense to you? You are a smart boy, with your mother's sparkle of eye and her fearless wit. Such qualities are within your father too, but he tries hard to hide them. Your mother can always make me laugh, for she draws the best parts of your father out when he needs that done. I see you are mastering that art as well; good for you. Nicholas has his gift of being himself and you have the gift of seeing what is within other people. Never lose that touch, my boy. You have a marvelous family, one that I wish I had been closer too but the seas were against me. In the last of my years I have enjoyed the greatest gift in seeing the smiles of my great-grandchildren, large and small._

_Your father named you after the Saint Martin, an unbaptised Roman soldier who split his cloak to keep a beggar warm. It is a great freedom he gave you, Martin. He knows you to be the same kind, gentle soldier of life as your namesake, who follows what he knows is correct and good. There was quite a Saint Martin's Summer the year of your birth, and you were indeed born upon the 11__th__, when the nights were long and mirk._

_I leave this world comforted in the knowledge that the family is in good hands, and with a solid future. You are still unfinished in your destiny; seek out your kinfolk across the Sleeve should your questions take you there. The doors shut to your father are not your doors, and he would be the first to tell you so._

_With great affection,_

_Your loving great-grandfather,_

_Triaged Potier_

_Flying above the last storm_

-

On a clear day, France can lock eyes with England. It begins, traditionally, with the Grey Nose Cape of France and stretches over the Dover Straits to the white chalk cliffs on the other side.

Despite it being on French soil (and the residents insist on calling it _Cap Gris Nez_), the Cape is part of an old Viking settlement called "Home of Odin" which shifted in time to Odingehim and finally, Audinghen. The people still keep to the original Viking ways; they are farmers who prefer the plough and cart.

As one might suspect, it is one of the many pin-pricks on the world's map of borders, where the greatest act of recognition is one's ability to rebuild after thorough destruction by opposing foes.

In the particular history of this Cape, the last destroyers were the English. Three hundred years had almost passed since a party of soldiers under the English King drew the residents inside a church and then burnt it all, soul and timber, to the next world.

Charles the First was not the sort of monarch that inspired universal admiration.

"Take me here," Old Potier had commanded from his death-bed, and though his rasping, dry lips could have been misunderstood, they had all known too well what the old pirate had wanted. They had bundled him up as best as they could against the night winds, and carted him on padded springs to the northern part of the country where he could look upon the cliffs and see the white lands of Albion.

"This is what it looks like," he told his great-grandson Marcus Lestrade.

"What, Tad-kohz?" The young man had asked.

"The Afterlife." And the old man wrapped his oilskin-coated blanket about him a bit more tightly, his gnarled brown hands still showing the firmness of his youth.

Marcus followed the rheumy old eyes, dark as only a Breton's can be, across the brilliant play of sunshine against waters that shone a peculiar blue. The St. Martin's Summer was drawing to an end, and with it, the first nip of cool weather was promising for winter. All he saw was the long, high wall of gleaming white chalk.

"It is time to send for him." The patriarch announced. "While there is still a legacy to pass on."

"But…sir…" Marcus pulled off his knit cap and twisted it in his hands. "Will he be able to come?"

"If he can." Was the low answer. "If he cannot, it is the word of God."

-

A heart may not break all at once. That requires a clean, swift blow, or a precise fracture along the lines. Like death, which comes either swiftly or slowly, it varies in its progress.

In the streets of London, in an act of Christian malice against Christian, a man's heart did not precisely break, but something within that heart failed.

The Fenian bomb had been small and carefully planted within an abandoned building overlooking the site of the children's outdoor choir for Martlemass. Not a Catholic holiday, the celebration had been going on since the English had set aside a part of the year to slaughter the cattle the winter could not keep.

Lestrade had been as nervous as the other Yarders, hearing the whispers of hateful rumor and promise filtering through the pubs and taverns and dark alley-ways. But _where_ was the question, and at last the Home Office had decided the target would be close to the Yard itself. History repeating itself was likely, and considering the stamp of the Irish mindset, a good wager. The Yard's own Irishmen said the severe backlash and hangings of the Fenian Bombers of the '80's would almost guarantee a repeat of attack against the Yard twenty years later…it would be a very Irish statement of defiance.

So they had all drawn straws, and Lestrade had pulled the one with 'parade' written upon it, and he suspected it was a game of loaded dice on Gregson because everyone knew his son Nicholas was singing in the Children's Choir off Paddington Station on the same day of his other son's birthday. Suspected, but couldn't prove it, and he didn't feel like protesting a well-meaning manipulation.

He didn't forget the duties of a Yarder even as he sat with his wife and oldest son and tiny daughter in the sea of folding-chairs before the small army of boys clad in Sunday Best and polished shoes. He watched the surfacing of the patrolling Bobbies every quarter-hour in the sea of humans, met their eyes and nodded to their negative signals. Nothing yet; perhaps nothing for the rest of the day; perhaps even a trick the Fenian wanted to play on the stiff English sobriety. But he watched as much as the Bobbies did, and that was exactly what the Constables said on his behalf later at the trial.

-

"He was a strange man." Old Potier said to the sighing ocean.

"Who, sir?" Marcus asked. With time his language was smoothing out from its traces of English…that world was eroding away and the old Breton was returning to his memories.

"Charles the First." Potier explained. "Very odd in the head…I wonder if anyone thought to examine his head before they took it? It would have explained much."

"I don't understand, sir."

"The Divine Right of Kings is all very well, mab. It's just that it was because of him that your family came over the Channel in the first place." The old floder held the cup of warm cider inside his gnarled hands, tasting with his skin before his tongue. "He wanted fine weavings…and there were weavers here. Weavers such as the Lestrades were…and the other eleven families."

Marcus plucked grasses up in his fingers, feeling the sweet sting of wild chamomile against his nose like sun-ripened apples. "Mother says they didn't have a choice when they crossed the Channel to England." He spoke timidly. "She says they were imprisoned to the foremen who contracted them over."

It is a shameful thing to admit to not being in control of one's destiny; he's English enough to feel that way, even though his French and Welsh blood have taken a cynical acceptance over the centuries. The young man brought up the taboo subject, hoping to hear that his mother was wrong or fanciful.

He heard neither; only the sound of his grandfather's two lungs sighing against and with the breath of the soft ocean's voice below.

"Your mother would not be wrong." He shook his head. "So many ways to cross the Channel…yet they chose this one. The closest one across. If you had a load of human cargo who didn't want to be there…which path would you take?" Old Potier picked through his memories slowly, one inch at a time. "Too many ways to escape from the peninsula to the island…too many islets to swim to…too many currents to cast oneself in to cheat the master of a life." Old Potier stopped a moment, considering as the cider freed his throat. "He was a nasty one that year."

"Who was, sir?"

"The Ankou."

Marcus shudders from head to toe. He can't call this superstition; the people here keep to the old beliefs as easily as they keep to their 300 saints and the Holy Trinity. The Ankou, he knew from listening, was the soul of the man who died last year, condemned to collect the dead until the last person to die for that year takes over the duty. And there are times when the Collector of the Dead, slouched inside his broad-brimmed hat to hide his glowing eyes and longcoat…collects with a vengeance.

The sailors speak of death with dry humour, saying that eventually they must come to land to die, to make it easy for the Ankou; his cart can't easily get down to the soft shingle and collect the drowned and that can make him grumpy. Whatever the reason, this old man has chosen to come to land to die, and he plans on dying as close as he can to Dover.

-

When the bomb shattered, it was _after_ Inspector Gregson received a disjointed wire stating that the Fenians have chosen _not_ to target innocents. That would be disputed by the mourning families and churches of those who were in the abandoned building that day.

Later, after the dust settled and the doctor flushed brick-dust out of Inspector Hopkins' aching eyes, he tallied up twelve men, women and children who were already in the building when it collapsed about their ears. Three were killed outright; two more died in the comfort of Bart's hospital beds. One group of the twelve had been a loose knot of homeless poor, seeking shelter against the threat of the rain that came that following dawn. The rest had been smiling, laughing people on a lark wanting the high views of the windows and roof to see and hear the children singing.

Of all the terrible things, Hopkins is most affected by young Nicholas Lestrade, who feels guilt that people died because they wanted to hear his choir singing Tudor celebrations of the year.

It helps not that Nicholas' gruff father tells him that it's just a boy's tender heart talking, and not to listen to it; he has enough troubles. Perhaps so, but Hopkins will not be able to hear the pipe and tabor for the rest of his life without some tiny thread of that day returning to his brain. Or remembering that Nicholas Lestrade's beautiful, sweet voice ceases. Other than the occasional song or hymn in church or with the family, Nicholas' voice remains silent after his fourteenth year.

-

It was the compression of the air in the blast that ruined Nicholas Lestrade's hopes of a military career, by courtesy of his ear canals. Logically, they can't find fault with the blast itself, but with the silent infection deep within his sinusoid cavities. It had settled behind his ears, mostly the left ear because that was the side he liked to sleep on.

Clea Lestrade can only hope that small as the Lestrades are, they are not trampled in the chaos as they try to reach their son. He collapsed as if struck by a bullet, hand clapped over his ears as he thrashed and screamed. The other choirboys are scattered like jacks tossed upon concrete; they run to their mothers and fathers and scream their fear as their families scream right back and the Bobbies scream with their whistles until an answering clang from the fire-bells echo up the street on each side. She's too busy stumbling in her heavy skirts with Margaret, Trying in vain to hold Martin but the boy leaps across the ruins of the street like a goat in his father's wake and she knows that she hasn't the right to try to stop her son.

Clea has never been so paralysed in her life, nor so helpless. Geoffrey pins the boy down to the filthy sidewalk as he thrashes and screams, getting his handkerchief on him somehow over his ear and holding him tight. It isn't at all easy; Nick is his father's height and more his mass and young, but he is trying not to hurt himself or anyone.

Finally, the boy dissolves into a moaning lump.

Pale but composed, Geoffrey meets his wife's eyes. He knows something. "Clea," he whispers, "come please give us a hand?"

Pretending calm, she kneels before them. Geoffrey is holding the cloth over their son's ear in a death-grip. Nick's eyes are squeezed shut but tears leak through.

"I need your handkerchief," he whispers softly…gently. "Just…I'm going to turn his head over, and when I take mine away, put yours over his ear. Cover it best as you can."

She nodded, and pulled out her smaller, thinner square trimmed with lace. Martin adds his over hers, his lips set.

Geoffrey is bracing himself for something. "Nicholas, you have to roll over now. I'm going to help you. Patience now." He swallows and braces the boy's head. "Easy…slowly…"

Still keeping his hand over Nick's ear, Geoffrey maneuvers the boy until his left side is flat. His head elevated, cradled in his father's large hand while Martin clutched his other hand.

"Ready?" Geoffrey meets her gaze.

Clea holds her handkerchief, and Geoffrey braces Nick's head while the other hand moves away. Clea darts her hand beneath; Geoffrey drops his cloth like a dead thing and uses both hands to keep up support, but Clea could see what it flowing out of their son: a sickening river of blood and yellow suppuration.

"We'll need bandages." She said with numb lips. "Cotton."

"I'll get them."

"No." She swallowed. "I will. You need to stay here with him…he's…he's too big for me if he can't stop himself from thrashing."

He nodded. "We'll be here." Martin nods too, his grip tight upon his brother. Margaret pats him with her tiny hand before toddling after her mother in the growing ruckus.

Nick cries without a sound as the infection drains. It is frightening, both to see the strong, sturdy young man so helpless and to also see the horrifying amount of blood coming out his ear. All their cloths are soaked at the end. Blood and infection and fluid just keeps coming out, where it doesn't seem possible a single human head would have so much room. Geoffrey puts him over his shoulder despite the fact that it is all he can do to lift this fourteen-year old giant against his ordinary frame, but he is a father and fathers can do more than the usual man. They all walk back to their rooms where they can at least get him cleaned him up and upon the settee with a glass of watered whisky. At last, he slips to an exhausted doze surrounded by his sister and brother, and his father feels a new sort of sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach: this is unlike anything he has ever felt in his life.

In tending to his son, he not only forgot his post, he abandoned it.

But he is a man of the Yard, and if they dismiss him in disgrace, they will do it tomorrow, not today. And he must go and return to his duties.

-

_Dear Margit,_

_When you were born you were the smallest of children. We could hold you inside one hand but there was nothing wrong with you, you were just small and precious. It was your mother who came upon the name, Margit, because it means pearl. A pearl is small and precious…and you are the pearl of great price. Not a day passes that you enrich the lives of your loved ones. Mothers love their sons, but they long for daughters. My own daughters did. Love yours and love well._

_You are too young to hear all I have to say now, but hear this portion out. I have set aside a longer letter for you to read when you become a woman. I shall not fill your pretty head with an old man's wanderings as he finishes his accounts of life._

_For now, my little sweet girl,_

_Your loving grandfather,_

_Triaged Potier_

_The Seagull._

-

The press has a field day.

Long-standing revenges against past incidences and words made in passing are suddenly brought to the fore. It is the last portion of the last year of the century. The next will be in 51 days. What better way to celebrate than remind the world of the same tired flaws the Met has never resolved?

The day is coming when Queen Victoria will step down and the House of Hanover ends. Her heir is of the House of Saxe-Colburg and Gotha. From a Germanic House to a fully German House of rule, England will be forced into many changes, and it is a blind, deaf and dumb mute who cannot sense this. With change in the air comes the attitude that change must be grasped, before it is forced upon them.

Scapegoats must be had.

Lestrade sits in the corner of the Chief's Office, as filthy as the entire length of Paddington Street _before_ the rainfall pattering over their heads. He smells himself and is ashamed. He reeks of dirt, and clay, dynamite, blood, sweat and other humans. Too many humans. Worst of all, he smells of their fear.

"_I won't discipline a policeman just because a dirty rag like the Littoral says I should."_

The words add to the rain-patter.

"_I won't even discipline you. We'll get a specialist in."_

He hears the words, but they fail to affect him.

"_Do you have anything to add?"_

He stirs at last. "Do you remember Constable Johnston…and Chief Constable Matthews?"

The Chief frowns slightly, but Gregson is already frowning and leaning backward, away from him and the situation. He knows. He knows what Lestrade is about to say.

"You'll have to refresh my memory, Inspector." The Chief scowls with the face of a man who sees a trap if he can't recognize it.

Hard to say if he's telling the truth. The man invented the poker face. Lestrade moves forward.

"Constable Johnston was disciplined without pay for being late to work…he'd been delayed at the funeral of his only son. C. C. Matthews was dismissed from his duties because he had been late to work from attending to the deaths of his son and his wife. It was…before your time, sir."

The Chief grows red and hot above his starched collar. "What are you trying to say, Lestrade?" He asks from beneath his neatly-trimmed beard.

"That it would be unfair to expect any less discipline than what the others had." It feels as though he is pulling his own tongue out, but hard as the words are, the truth would be harder to hide. If he kept quiet, allowed this change in policy from the Chief's discretion…people would talk. Whispers would follow him even more than usual.

The Chief does not hide his relief. "You are dismissed a week without pay, Inspector. I trust this will still any rumours that the Yard plays the game of favourites with its men."

And because the notion of anyone in the Yard playing favourites with the likes of _him_ is amusing, Lestrade almost laughs as he agrees. He even tips to Gregson, who has been trying not to look guilty the whole time for his inadvertent role in Lestrade's disgrace.

He comes home with relief to see his son again, and with the added relief that the rent has been paid in advance for a quarter-year. He has enough time to share a quiet supper with them before the telegram from his nephew, his adopted brother Marcus, comes to their door.

-

_Dear Nicholas_

_Hard to be the middle one in the lot, I know. I was one myself. And yet you came so strongly into this world how could anyone be in doubt?_

_They told me how they worried about you. How your Taddiz stayed up all night with your brother and how they both walked the floors at night. They held you as if afraid you would run away from them if they turned their back. I envy you growing up in this world. I loved the creatures of God and had I a choice I would have stayed on land and learnt their ways. You have that chance. Whatever you do, do not turn your back on what makes you come alive._

_You worry about causing your taddiz pain…do not. You are his son and he will be loyal to you to the very end. That is, unless you turn into some sort of depraved criminal and I can't imagine that happening…Be true to yourself, Nicholas. Just as I hope your brother will be true to himself. If it looks like he isn't, do give him a poke in the ribs, would you? He can be as bad as your Taddiz at times…too serious for his years. Your father never had a Nicholas when he was growing up, someone who could make him go outside and count spiderwebs or hunt glow-worms after a rain. Martin does, and he is as rich as a king to have you. At the same token, I hope no one is foolish enough to make you their enemy, for if Martin ever found out, I doubt the island would be large enough to hide them._

_Look after that wonderful mother of yours, and that baby sister. Should anyone else join the family, do the same as I would do. The Cheatham blood mixes well within your heart; you indeed hold what is yours, and you hold it well with affection and honest warmth. You house a great heart and a beautiful disposition—your father will deny this, but you have his long patience, and that offsets the Cheatham ability to fight. You are a joy, Nicholas. Our family was blessed for your presence. If anyone deserved to be named after the most generous of saints, it would be yourself._

_With honest love,_

_Your great-grandfather_

_Triaged Potier_

_Flying above the last storm._

-

Marcus Lestrade gave them the last moments together. Geoffrey…Jafrez, is so much like the old man entrusted to his care that it is an imposition of privacy to join them. He busied himself with other matters; transportation, the collection of news, and the acceptance of many, many gifts and deliveries.

Eight hours later Jafrez found him in the kitchen as he washes the last of the dishes in the tiny kitchen. They shared the work together, neither speaking.

"He wants the old burial, in the land of the forefathers." Marcus said at last. "That's why he came here instead of sit in his farm."

"Is that where Mamm and Tad are?" Jafrez asked, even though his father has not called him 'son' in decades.

"Ya. Taking care of things."

"So we need to plan out a boat across the water…to Dover."

"Simple enough to arrange…Sein's nephews want the honour of the task."

"Then we'll do it. I wouldn't trust my ability to get any of us across…"

"You've ferried the Dead over before, haven't you?"

"No…I rode over with the cargo." His brother sighed and rubs the back of his neck. "I couldn't see a thing."

"We'll be little more than helpful paddles and oars. Sein's folk will be doing the navigating."

"We're still talking twenty bloody miles from here to Dover."

"They do it." Marcus sighed too. All the time. And while we're out there, the men will be digging out a space for a coffin full of stones at the cemetery."

Half-laughing, Jafrez clapped him on the back. "Just as well." He says. "Just as well you're in the family trade. I'm well out of it."

"Did you ever worry that you'd have to arrest one of us?" Marcus wondered.

"Lord, no, Marcus. I wanted to spend my life on dry land, and I did all I could to even avoid a post with the River Police. If any of you shows up in my jurisdiction, I'm certain you'll have deserved the clip of my Derbies!"

-

Back in London, Clea Lestrade sits up at night with her thoughts and a candle. Somewhere her husband is out on the other side of a sea as black as the space between the stars, seeing to the final moments of an old man who embraced her as part of his family.

She wishes she could be there with him…with them. But she cannot and will not leave her children when they need her the most.

When Geoffrey returns it will be to see if someone has changed their mind and dismissed him for leaving his post. She hopes it will not happen; small changes work within the Yard, not large changes, and there are already things happening within the Met that would have been unfathomable when they were first married. Who would have thought uniformed women of the police would exist back in 1882? Or that they would have any powers of authority?

The rain has ceased after three days. She is grateful. It had given the entire city the impression of weeping.

Her hands sweep the newspaper to the side, gently. Within those papers rest the absolution of the Yard: Sherlock Holmes has proclaimed in public that the Fenians were not responsible for the bombing, and that the evidence had already been put forth. She doesn't know very much about the man, save as a source of her husband's weekly grumblings. Someone either put him on the case or he took it for his own interest. Either way, she is assured, he will not rest until he finds the truth.

She wonders at the hatred coiling inside human hearts, that they would commit murder and not take the credit for it. Who would hate the English and the Irish enough to ferment the longstanding animosity even further? It is a strange, terrifying thing to contemplate.

-

His grandfather is so close to death now, that any further delay is cruelty. Lestrade sits at his side, using the trunk of things Potier has passed on to him as a chair. There's letters addressed to each of them, including Clea and two for Margit. He hopes he can read them without help.

He is thinking of how the smell of death is not so unpleasant after all, but it is deeply alien to the usual smells of life. It is that difference that makes his brain suggest something is wrong.

"I went to the _Pardon_ thirty years ago." The old rascal is saying, no more than a whisper beneath the bed-clothes. "You remember the story?"

"I remember that if one doesn't visit the saints at least once in their lifetime, they must finish the journey in death." Lestrade hates to confess his ignorance on his people's ways, but not so very long ago, he realised the greater shame would be in hiding it.

"Yes…one coffin-length of distance every seven years." The old man smiles weakly, though his dull eyes keep a tiny spark of the old defiance. "The _Tro Breihz_ is a reason to live, is it not?"

It is no light thing to look upon the face of a dying man and see oneself there. This is a face that will be his someday, should he live so long and grow a beard as silver as the hair on top. So he studies it, in partial curiosity of himself, and is reassured at the calmness behind that bright, sable gaze.

"Where did you start?" Lestrade asks gently.

"St. Malo…I was there at the time." Potier shifts restlessly as the sea against the sands, and coughs once. "Dol…Vannes…St. Corentin's Town…" He would not say "Quimper" by name, not out of respect to old family pains. "St. Pol, St. Tudwel, St. Brioc." He coughed again. "Your saint."

"What?" Lestrade whispered as the old eyes closed behind a thin curtain of skin. "I don't have a saint…do I?" His grandmother's Tony medallion off his watch-chain is the only such memento, and he'd thought himself lucky to be accepted enough for a hand-me-down.

"Everyone has _a_ saint." Potier assured him. "You have more than one…You have quite a few…I think you need them…" The voice weakened as sleep pulled harder but the corners of that old mouth are turning up in amusement. "…everyone you can get, mab…"

"I've never understood that," Lestrade confesses. "Why is that?"

"Why is what, mab?"

"Why is it, people who do the most seem to be in the most need?"

"That's just the laws of Nature talking, mab." The old, dry hand rests hot under his. He is burning his life away, not placidly waiting for it to leak out. "People who do are different from people who don't. That's why the saints…and beggars…and madmen…help those who do."

Lestrade laughs under his breath. "You must be right…I can think of one madman in particular…"

Three days later, it was finished.

-

The Cliffs of Dover cannot be seen at night.

_Splash_.

The paddles pulled against the swirling current. The small boat shot forward, light and strong with solid weight to ballast below their feet. It could have been one of the thousands of small fishing-boats common to the Sea of Brittany.

Lestrade bowed his head to its force, and slowly lifted his eyes back up to the smoky stars above.

This was something completely out of his jurisdiction. For hours upon hours he'd pondered every possible nuance but it all came to one matter. This was the ritual of the dead, and he had nothing to do at all with it because he was still one of the living.

In front of him stroked the long, strong form of one of Potier's smugglers; a man younger than himself who had a single patch of white skin on the back of one hand. Lestrade just knew the old piebald albino Sein was his grandfather, but he wasn't going to ask about something that was none of his business.

It is no light thing to ferry from one part of the world to the other.

The last time he traveled on the Ferry of the Dead, his people were smuggling him back to England before the wrong people noticed his absence. In the darkness total he'd shared space with a dead man, one of his grandfather's old mates. The body had been a big man, with coins over his eyes and the jaw tied, half-wrapped in the sailcloth that would be stitched up when they reached the shore.

For centuries the Bretons sent goods across the Channel, claiming that their strangely heavy boats were the weight of the dead, for they were the ferrymen of the Ankou. The Frankish Kings accepted this explanation and permitted them duty-free status for their work.

Truth rarely stopped at one point. Lestrade had learned this in his older years. One truth spawns another, and a fact begets another fact. The ferrymen did not always send over smuggling-goods to their homeland. There were times when the ships and boats actually did take the dead over in their false-bottoms.

About him the Channel hissed and roared; when water broke against the edges of islands and shallow rock, the sound was high and soft, like an exhalation of great lungs. The deeper water pulled about them, quieter and much more dangerous.

No ghosts need apply, Sherlock Holmes said once. No ghosts need apply.

He didn't quarrel with that. He wasn't certain what he'd do if he ever ran into a ghost—but he didn't see as how he would even have room in his life for a revenant.

-

They beached at the nephews' directions hours before dawn. By then all were trembling from the exertion of keeping their wits about as large metal-hulled ships slipped by as unknowing and destructive as giants. A single brush against those stinking leviathans would have meant death and precious little promise of finding their bodies afterward.

The ferryman helped, silent and garbed in darkness as tradition demanded. Together they rigged up the travois and set upon dry land.

Dry land. In _England_. Was any part truly dry?

They continued up the coast into a narrow, winding path speckled with strangely-shaped trees in the starlight. Lestrade knew he was a guest, and thus he asked no questions.

At the end, finally, they lowered his grandfather to the grass inside his oiled sailcloth. The nephews and Marcus began to dig in the soft earth even though it quivered in protest at the slightest press of their shovels. It was Lestrade's task to sit with the dead man, and that he did without complaint.

His grandfather is at peace under the starlight. The old face is smoothed of its lines, and the silver hair turned white since the last meeting. In death the eyes are sunken…One always sees the old blood at the end…his grandson remembers that ridiculously upon that moment…how true.

He'd been…he was…an amazing man. A husband to two remarkable wives, one of which had been his grandmother. Father to remarkable daughters; the youngest being his mother…

Father and Grandfather to the owls…whatever that meant…

And proud great-grandfather to Martin and Nicholas and Margaret and…

His world collapses briefly into the briny water lapping in the little swamp.

And he is _still_ smiling, Lestrade realises. The old pirate had died, literally, with a little smile playing about his lips as though there was some sort of joke lurking about…damned if he knew what the joke was…it would have been cheating to ask.

"I used to wonder why he never worried about the Ankou," one of the nephews says calmly. "That was when I was very young. And I didn't realise the sailors never stay on dry land long enough for the Ankou to notice."

Lestrade realised they were waiting for his permission upon the final step. For the last time he brushed his fingertips upon the old eyes…eyes that deserved the peace of the final sleep. He knew death too well to convince himself to check one last time. It was time; his time.

He stood, watching as his grandfather went down to the land of his forefathers. The black bog embraced him like a soft blanket. Within a minute, he was gone deep into the earth.

He is comforted that the old man had the burial of his choice.

And it was then…Lestrade realises the truth.

Old Potier chose to be put to rest in the land of his forefathers for the same reason his forefathers had chosen.

Because a missing body is as good as missing evidence.

Missing proof.

As long as he is never found, a small thread of mystery remains about him…

How many graves in the family cemetery were empty? How many were actually filled?

The truth of it all comes to him.

His grandfather's last joke.

No evidence.

He laughed, in the silent, damp-smelling pathways to the Sea.

One last joke.

The old rascal.

Avoiding the Ankou and his Death-cart. Indeed.

Obscuring evidence, more like. And got his grandson along to help.

They part ways after this; the others back across the sea, and he to home.

London.

He finds a surprise there.

Sherlock Holmes is seating at the train station with a newspaper in his lap. For a moment Lestrade just watches him, and thinks to himself (with the perspective of death hanging about) that it is a shame that a man who is eleven years younger than himself would look that much older. There's something sad and tragic about it. And not something that can be put into words.

"You are earlier than I expected." Is the consultant's observation.

"And why would you be here expecting me, Mr. Holmes? Come to pay your respects to my career?"

Mr. Holmes regards him carefully, his grey eyes glinting. Lestrade wonders if the man, for all his brains, has ever contemplated the way he looks in the eyes of the world. "Your good wife assured me you would be here today; there is little deductive effort there."

"Very good." Lestrade sinks down into the bench.

"You needn't worry about your career." Holmes has pulled out the largest traveling pipe north of Plymouth and is smoking it while ignoring the glares of the women. "It is not a pretty incident, I'll grant you. But you are not to be singled out for the blame."

"There are dead children, Mr. Holmes. Dead women and men. Someone needs to be blamed."

"Then allow those who set the bomb to take that blame. It is clear they were lying about their intentions." Holmes never blinks. "The message to the Yard was contrived."

"You'll have to convince the Home Office of that." Lestrade wonders why he doesn't feel much right now. Perhaps it is because he mostly feels caught between two pulls: the death of his grandfather, and the life of his son.

Holmes chuckles. "The Home Office is being watched by its patrons. Convincing will require little effort."

"I'll take your word for that." Lestrade gnaws it over like a bone. "Surely that isn't why you came all the way over here."

"Of course not." Holmes sniffs as grandly as an old aunt. "There is a charming little book-shop not a street down, where I may purchase suitable sheets of music."

"Of course." Lestrade goes along with the lie—what's one more? He's learnt many things late in life, and one of them is that Mr. Sherlock Holmes would utterly die if caught in an open show of support for the police.

But thoughts of music remind him of Nicholas, and he rises to his feet. "I shan't keep you from your music, Mr. Holmes. I expect I'll see you in London before long."

"With the rate of crime being what it is…I expect you are correct."

Lestrade leaves the man, the strange, almost ephemeral man, smoking thunderclouds out of his pipe at the station. He thinks to himself that the whole debate about ghosts and the supernatural might be avoided if another question was asked: Does the person in the debate need to know about the supernatural? Some people require no assurance, and he's amazed not to have seen this before.

Yet…it makes sense. He wouldn't discuss the price of his favorite salt to Bradstreet, or a gruesome case to his wife. They didn't _need_ such things. It looks to him that ghosts are nothing more than newsprint to men like Mr. Holmes—assuming there are men like he. Ghosts belong to the portions of the newspaper he would never scorn—poorly written and salacious, unfounded rumours and emotions to shame the Agony columns he loves so much.

What would he think of the Dead Ferries? Or the Ankou? Would he be amused that his unimaginative rival would be a part of something so strange and immaterial? Possibly.

It isn't like Lestrade to suffer so many insights at once.

I was a ferryman for the Ankou, he thinks to himself. I carried the dead to the Gate of Heaven, and it was a black, sucking bog in a secret forest at the edge of the salt-marshes. It was the gate of Heaven to my grandfather, and I have no need to disbelieve him.

If there is one gateway to Heaven, there is another.

Bradstreet's songs of the dead returning to visit the living at this time of year make sense now. Finally. If the gateways are so closeby, why can't they return? Is this why the English have such a tradition of ghost stories upon Christmas?

Bradstreet would laugh at him, kindly. Clea would believe him without questioning. He wouldn't speak of such things to Mr. Holmes…he didn't own the right words. The man was so above him in the English language he might as well be speaking foreign tongues half the time.

If Old Potier was correct, he stands a good chance of being the Ankou for the year. He'd be a kindly Mr. Death, but woe to his old enemies if they weren't already dead.

The Ankou is not Death; he is only the henchman. He cleans the roadways for what comes next. This particular Ankou left the bulk of his wealth is strange little places that surface, every few years, at the door-stop of the Lestrades: pieces of jewelry, a coin collection, money. The hard times have technically departed, but they would all have traded it to have their benefactor back among them.

-

Queen Victoria's reign ends sooner than people think; on the twenty-second day of January of 1901 the House of Hanover passes out of the Crown. It will be less than two generations before the House of Saxe-Coburn is changed forever to the House of Windsor—a reflection of the deepest change of all: that the people may accept German ties among the rulers, but they will not accept going to war against Germans for another German title. They are English; they are British. They are Scot and Welsh and Manx and Cornish, denizens of the Norman-speaking isles of the Channel and Norse and even Irish and Gaul.

She wore mourning black nearly all her life, but in truth she hated black funerals. For her ceremony the entire country festooned in purple, and in the white that matched the bridal veil of her funeral casket. In death she was attended by her son, and her eldest grandson, the Emperor William the II. William the II was not only the eldest of the Queen's grandchildren, he held within him an attitude towards rule that would have been approved by the executed Charles I. Most tellingly, he had no fit affection with his mother, the Princess Victoria, or for the English itself. It was a tragedy of the world that on top of his admirable qualities and pity for the German working man, he wrongly believed the _Entene Cordiale_ with France was not about ending a thousand years of conflict between the two countries, but about "encircling Germany."

Rarely is a peace accord seen as an excuse for hostility, and the Agreement was more oil upon the flames. Many things happen during the reign of Prince Bertie; boxing is finally recognized as a "legitimate" sport instead of the play of the vulgar. The first British submarine launches. Australia becomes a commonwealth; President Roosevelt replaces the assassinated President McKinley. Most surprising of all, Dr. Watson publishes the Hound of the Baskervilles…but even that pales to the sad news that the Anglo-German Alliance has failed to come to conclusion. By that point, even the beggar on the street knows the future has been written in red blood and black gunpowder.

Sometimes, the Ankou merely brushes by because you aren't that important a person. Nicholas Lestrade tries to enlist to the War when he comes of age, but his burst eardrum disqualifies him. What feels like the end of his world (though it is the opposite to his parents') is answered when he is accepted to help protect the Home Front against German attacks. His hand with animals places his post upon the Zoological Gardens, which ensures him not only a steady job at the end of the war, but a respectable job in research and the burgeoning field of mental sciences.

His brother also tried to enlist, but eyes have been watching him since he took on another job to feed the family; eyes that noted his fine, meticulous work in draftsmanship and detailing. Working for the Foreign Office is the last thing on his mind, but there he is, and it would take a supernaturally willed spy to attempt the corruption of Martin Lestrade. Regardless of what one might think when reading the novels, there is one thing that has come out in Watson's writings and that is the undeniable fact that a Lestrade is an intractable enemy. Martin exists throughout the war as a sort of exotic, strange specimen of humanity among the high-born, a man who is eternally bemused and pitying of the foibles of his betters. But he is free after the war to return to his older love, and that leads to fine calligraphy and gilding.

Sherlock Holmes suffers from the attentions of what he thinks is a madman--who else would wish to make a silent film in his honour? He chooses at last to ignore the fussing, for Art in the Blood can take on the strangest of forms and who knows what blood flows through a man like Arthur Marvin? Watson is completely out of the artistic disaster; he has finally been accorded the recognition he is due with a humble invitation to speak as a paid lecturer among several medical colleges.

-

"I see that the Lestrades have come into a bit of money."

Mrs. Bradstreet never pauses while she sews. About them children are laughing. Children left poor from the slap of War. She is glad they can laugh, but she is even more glad that her hands can still permit her to stitch up the lengths of knitting into warm waistcoats and slippers and stockings. "Oh?" She asks without looking up.

"Yes…" A faint tinge of the wistful creeps spiderlike into the voice of her fellow volunteer. About them the fuss and clatter of cooking-pots and the slurp of hot stews flutter. "Mr. Lestrade possessed shares in the Alpine Shoe Company."

Hazel Bradstreet pauses then, against her usual rules. "Did he now?" She inquired. A spectral memory emerges. The Christmas gifts at the Yard…and a chuckling joke by her husband. A comment against his best friend's constant walking about.

"Yes…did you know they'll be building a factory here?" The lean-faced woman lowers her paper with a sniff of unhappiness. Hazel wishes she could tell the woman to keep reading, but it would go against her reputation. She is a dragon against the younger women who wish to sit idly and gossip while the wires cease their purling. "All the shares have been advanced…they won't be hurting for money, will they? Well, some people have all the luck."

Hazel Bradstreet thinks easily past the years, beyond a time that her silly companion could comprehend. A newlywed couple who subsided on soups and sufficiency…who did without so their children would have something without being bitter at life.

"I wouldn't say they were completely lucky." Hazel admonishes gently.

"No, you're right there." The other woman agrees—but grudgingly, as she always does. "I remember when that grandfather of theirs, that rich sailor died." Satisfied at herself, she touches her collar-bone in self-announcement. "I remember reading that. The man had all that money, but did you know, he never left his family a thing."


	12. Apostle's Creed

"You're late."

Inspector Tobias Gregson scowled as his rival hurried up, a paper sack crooked within his arm. Even in the middle of the day, Lestrade looked as energetically harried as ever, which was almost a contrast to his immaculate wardrobe.

"Not my fault the trains had a hold-up." He panted. "I just got back from the other side, for pity's sake!"

"You can only hope it was a hold-up." Gregson grunted. "Those Hammersmiths always go wrong somewhere."

Lestrade flashed him a look that was a nice mix of amusement and exasperation. "Shall I ask them to show me the engine before I get on the thing?"

"If it isn't a Clyde Engine, you'd know by the sound of it."

Lestrade snorted like a very small plough-horse. Without a further word the two men hopped off the steam-wreathed platform and threaded their way through the slightly cleaner swirl of people.

London might be a city of millions, but that number was usually only counted by the people who lived there, with a token thought of its visitors. It was just as well. The idea of adding another spare million "give or take" might put the planners and sewer-designers into a lifelong regime of nervine drops and cool compresses upon the brow.

Gregson ploughed his way through with his bigger size and surprising speed; Lestrade simply tried to avoid people as much as possible and darted about like a sparrow after stolen goods. They cleared the mess at the same time, and while they weren't friends, they shared a sigh of relief.

"Now where?"

"Surreyside."

Lestrade made a grimace of distaste. "That could be taken as a suggestive turn of phrase, you realise…"1

"Only to those with a suggestive frame of mind." Gregson reminded him smugly.

Lestrade let the moment of scorn pass. Gregson was just whistling in the graveyard, trying to put on a brag because they were headed to one of the least-charming parts of London.

Lambeth was cleaner now than it was in the past, but to the uninitiated it was still a horror and the wonder that there could be something much lower. The two men navigated the low swamp with all its commingling odours of sewage, tar, decay, and unwashed masses huddled around the sharp tang of fires built inside cobbled metal boxes. It paired with the constant mix of sounds: the steaming shrieks from factories, or the rattle of the people working and living underneath the constant background of train whistles. True residents of London, the Inspectors never even noticed the trains. The Neckinger, too thin and sad to be worth even leeches, drained its way to the Thames while half-clad children clamored in it for sport. The find of an algal-green beef bone was a prize to fight over.

The men stayed out of the fight; allowing the finder his prize would take out the rules of the gang and there would be a greater hell to pay in their absence. The boy took off running to the nearest rag and bone shop; it would be rendered with the others for its phosphorus. He had a fair chance of winning the race.

"Eh." Lestrade muttered his distaste as a man carted past them with a barrow full of dog dung for the tanners. "And to think the Archbishop and the Duke aren't interested in developing."

"Why should they?" Gregson wondered reasonably. "They're so rich they don't have to think about developing for further wealth."

Lestrade made a comment to that; a low, muttering opinion that Gregson shared just on principle. Lambeth was owned by only two people: the aforementioned Duke of Cornwall and the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a sorry state of affairs against London's great squares, buildings, terraces and parks drafted up by the more engaged officials.

"Any idea what George wanted to see us about?" Lestrade changed the topic for something useful.

"Not a bit. He saw us not that long ago at the Christmas get-together…I suppose it made him feel a bit lonely?"

"Probably." Lestrade hunched awkwardly as he tried to skirt a puddle that held a mass of residue from one of the blacking factories. "Hasn't retired all that long ago. I thought he said he was going to just get some rest and then think about the future later."

"That's my plan once I get around to retiring." Gregson confessed.

Lestrade shot him a poor look. "You, retire?" He scoffed. "April Fool's come a bit early, has it?"

"You should stop acting like you're amusing, Lestrade. At least until you get good at it."

"In the meantime, I'll have to practice on someone."

The bickering—again, more of the graveyard whistling—kept them busy while they tried to block from their minds the fact that one of their old comrades had retired to a life of squalor.

A Constable passed them by from L Division and passed them a nod of respect. The bottoms of his trousers were showing fray and mud, but he'd walked most the caking off his heavy boots.

"He said he was staying just down from the cottages on Cornwall Street…" Gregson muttered uncertainly. This part of the slums was lightening up by degrees; a showing of hard work and respectability displayed in tiny ways, such as the presence of actual curtains on the few windows. Lestrade was startled at the sight of a tiny plant growing out of a broken teapot in a sill.

"That's got to be it," he said when they saw a whitewashed building, narrow as a banker's promise, with blue beige curtains hanging neatly on the other side of windows washed with vinegar and newspaper.

"12…" Gregson frowned and recognized the numbers. "Clean as a sailor, our George." He stepped lightly to the single step between the door and the streets, squared his shoulders and knocked.

Lestrade glared at him. "You're supposed to just knock, Gregson. Not snap the hinge!"

Gregson sniffed back, and loftily chose to ignore his detractor. "He said he'd be here…" He tried the battered wood again. "Hmph. Don't tell me he went off on a wild hare…"

"You know George, that's not like him…" Lestrade turned around to risk leaning his back against the wall. His head tilted up tiredly and his eyes shut for a moment. Gregson particularly remembered that moment, because not far from Lestrade the window behind his left shoulder was slightly ajar.

Before Gregson could ask Lestrade if he'd had his beauty rest, the small man's eyes shot open like golf-balls.

"Oh, _Tripledie_."

-

Gregson has never heard that word before in his life, much less such a thing from Lestrade's plainspoken lips. But he's a Methodist; believes in the Triple Deity; recognizes Lestrade is stuck on a horrified prayer. He's still turning when Lestrade starts pounding on the door in a frenzy.

"Gregson! Put your bloody great muscles to work here! You're built like an elephant--!"

Gregson catches on.

With an oath that shocks the passing ladies, he turns his body so his right side is to the door, and aims forward. It's as hard as striking brick but a mad spirit possesses them both as thick as Legion within the beggar. They hammer their bodies against the heavy wood, over and over, and Gregson hears the Apostle's Creed in his mind in tune to the blows of their bruising bones against the harder bones of tree:

_I believe in God the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.  
And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord;  
_

The door, unlocked but barred by a chair, rackets open, vibrating on the metal hinges. The frozen air of an empty house meets their faces; the smell is too well known. Food is rotting inside. No one wastes food without fear of angelic reprisal; least of all neat, clean and careful George Windsow, former Inspector, Second Class of Scotland Yard.

They pull their handkerchiefs up to their faces on reflex; there might be something more beneath that sickly-sweet stench; something contagious and unclean.

Gregson steps inside first to turn on the gaslights. They're cold. He curses. "Find a Constable!" He exclaims.

Lestrade finds one, fast. PC Browne from the most desperate slops in Lambeth. When they see that big, young man with the white face puffing up to the steps, all they can think of is the hollow-cheeked boy he used to be when the only income was by his father the brewer for the Red Lion.

Their soles click on the oiled wooden floor; hollow sounds. People need to be alive in a house for it to feel right. Browne knows George as a kindly neighbor who passes him a cup of tea on the way home. He points to the kitchen and they go in.

Flies dart away from a bowl of fruit growing a coat of grey fur. The man before the bowl had been seated in his chair, but in death the sagging of his muscles sent him to the floor. His pallor and skeletal limbs jut against the darkness of the planks, beneath the glory of his old uniform, too large by half for his once-broad body.

"Damn, still warm." Lestrade swears softly, and pulls off his glove. Before Gregson can ask what he's about, he gently presses upon the dead man's eyelids.

The eyes of the dead are the first thing to tend to upon death. Rigor sets there before anywhere else. There are no words to describe the horror and unease of a corpse with its eyes open—and most people believe the eyes are open for a reason: unfinished business.

Lestrade waits a moment; the lids move slowly down, but when he gradually pulls back, the lids remain where they are. They breathe relief in the cool room; their breaths mingle into a single cloud.

"Shall I fetch the wagon, sirs?" Browne asks quietly. Death is no stranger to any of them, just an occasional surprise.

"Yes…go, Constable…There's two of us," Lestrade says as if to himself. "Ought to suit as witness enough."

Gregson grunts. Lestrade's attitude to death is a little strange to him, but it was probably from his having foreign parents. The runt is decently matter-of-fact, never insulting in his emotions, but there's a tag-end of curiosity he faces where he seems to be wondering what the dead are thinking.

He looks up, and they both, needing something to do, stare about them in the slowly freezing room.

"Look." Gregson swallows. "The clock."

Lestrade twists around in his heavy coat to look behind him. Above his head is the mantle-clock, dead as the cold ashes of the fireplace.

"He stopped the clock." The little man whispers. "He planned it out to…to that much."

Gregson's head spins a bit at the thought.

"We need to find Brother Jerome." He says the unthinkable.

Lestrade's dark eyes shoot across the fast-cooling body between them. He nods cautiously, still unsure of Gregson's serious intentions. A sharp word comes to the big man but he manfully stifles it. Lestrade is not used to his rival burying their rivalry. He is even less used to Gregson noting a priest or minister or man of the cloth outside his own chapel.

"He'll be serving soup today." Lestrade swallows and slowly rises to his feet, better foot first. "He'd…he'll know what to say. They were officers together."

"I didn't know." Gregson confesses quietly. He's glad of it. The humble man who wore brown as part of his strange vows against poverty holds the belief that those who take their own lives are not in their proper mind and should be treated as gently as anyone would a person who has taken leave of their senses.

He can't bring himself to hang close to that dried-up shell. So he clops awkwardly about the cold room, hands in his pockets and trying to keep warm. Papers meet his eye, neatly stacked and folded once over. He picks the top off the stack and looks at it.

"What is it?" Lestrade hears him take a breath.

"Cancer." Gregson answers. "Stomach cancer."

There's nothing else to say.

_He descended into Hell…_

Or, if one was more progressive,

…_Was Crucified, dead and buried;_

The wagon will come, they'll make their reports, and they'll go home only to return to arrange the funeral. Brother Jerome will think of the right words to say about a man who took his own life…

_On the third day he rose from the dead_

_And ascended into heaven_

_Where he sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty_

Normally, the man has an easier job. He says them who suicides aren't in their right minds. But this is a quiet, calm decision planned in advance and how this will be explained with the hope of heaven…he just doesn't know. But Jerome has vowed no one will be buried under his hand without hope.

_From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead._

Perhaps he just misjudged the dose of morphine sitting on the table by the fruit…misjudged and fell into a stupor…the fruit was rotting because he couldn't eat, and yet he couldn't bear to be rid of them either.

Not every mystery needs to be solved…especially when the solution only raises more questions. But he'll think about it for a good, long time.

Lestrade has pulled off his bowler for a moment's respect, and his eyes close again. This time Gregson knows what he's doing. He's making a prayer.

_I believe in the Holy Spirit  
The Holy Catholic Church_

_The forgiveness of sins_

_The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting…_

_Amen._

1 "going Surreyside" was a popular euphemism for taking adventage of lax laws, as until 1888, Lambeth was outside the legal jurisdiction of the sterner laws of Westminster and London, being in the county of Surrey.


	13. Drug

London is almost quiet in the early hours.

Almost.

The city is an organism and it is never still; always someone is awake…The giant that is London is a restless sleeper. It shifts and moans to itself to the distant whistle of the trains and the faraway calls of the Confluence. Factories sigh like many lungs and a thread of sound isolates on occasion: a single shout of alarm, too far away to even pinpoint, or a shrill expression of glee.

Many are awake…not all of them with criminal intent.

It is a long, weary night—and cold.

Lestrade watches and only barely keeps from pulling out his watch to see if the night is going any faster than the last seventy-nine times he looked. It isn't. The church bells are enough of a tipoff. It creeps along as quickly as mould growing on Belvedere Road.

He breathes out as silently as possible—no sense getting a glare from Mr. Holmes from a sigh that might tip off their location. This has been a barely tolerable day starting with the ruckus at Baker Street and now…hours of waiting and their mark still hasn't shown up. Lestrade initially thought he'd be grateful to get Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson out of their rooms and into this problem so they could at least think about something else besides how angry they were at each other…but vigils have a way of being miserable, and this one was promising to stand alone in its own glory.

They've spent many nights in vigils and there is never anything _pleasant_ about them. The very purpose of being there is to prove someone has gone wrong in life at the expense and risk of others. It is something they do, as part of their lives as breathing.

The first flakes of snow settle on Lestrade's hatbrim and hang by single crystal limbs off the edge and flutter into the air with his breath. This isn't a good sign. London doesn't witness anything like what other people think is "normal" weather. Whatever comes in has to be strong enough to forge through the thick, protective wall of slimy London fog. He stares at the pale beige filigree before his eyes (snow is theoretically white here), and wonders how long it will last…

…and if this will ruin Mr. Holmes' plans? They started out poorly enough at Baker Street!

Lestrade doesn't like to dwell on that memory. He ignores the urge to look at them all, and especially those nearest him: patient, calm PC Cooper who had best _not_ get himself injured in the line of duty again or Lestrade will dock his pay for excessive bravery, so help him. The Coopers have lost one of their own for the Guelphic badge; they don't need to bury the son next to the father.

The young man is tall, long, and lean like a fine statue and muscled from walking a good thirty miles a day. He looks up to Lestrade as the old friend of his late father, and Lestrade daily struggles with his conscience to have him on his bailiwick. He doesn't want to see something happen to his best friend's son…but he can't stand to see him transferred somewhere else.

Next to him and sharing the warmth with their shoulders beneath the carpet is another copper's son, PC Barrett. Old George is crippled, not dead, but he's still a friend lost from his uniform and Lestrade misses the grinning man on the beat to this day. He's still patient and cheerful, but seeing him hobble along with his eel-cart and hardscrabble out his living in such a way isn't the same as having him back in the blue and doing his blue best. For reasons he can't divine, Lestrade is relieved that these two young men fell into such an easy friendship. It's a good thing to see the next crop of coppers learning the old values of unswerving loyalty and honesty.

He still worries about them and what to say to the families if there's another run with the ambulance…but these boys need no explanation of dangers. He doesn't insult them by speaking of the taboo. He doesn't remind them of their fathers' sacrifice and remove them from danger. It isn't his place to tell Death where to take his tithe.

Snowflakes create a light chain, their fernlike arms sticking together link after link over the fine hairs of their wool coats. Light strings depend off their hatbrims and helmet-rims like lace but blow apart at a puff. With the snow comes a growing silence. It creeps upon them, one layer of flake at a time. By the time it silvers the streets, steam is beginning to rise off Lestrade's shoulders. He runs warmer than most men; Dr. Watson says it's a common thing for a Celt, but try as he might, Lestrade still isn't certain what that is supposed to mean.

The doctor is sitting slightly apart and across Lestrade in the narrow snicket. Despite the cold, despite the poor beginning of the evening and the pain of his old wounds he sits drawn up like an insect with his knees to his chest inside his long coat so that the cotton carpet-blanket about his shoulders acts like a sheltering tent. Military down to his mustache and the starched white handkerchiefs folded inside each sleeve, he waits. He is a patient man—anyone who lived with Sherlock Holmes by expediency or choice would have to be. One might think it was just the old soldier in him, but Watson has something about him that is deeper than that mindless sort of waiting.

He waits, and he does it _expectantly_.

You'd think after all these years the man would be more…_bored_ about the unpleasantness of the job, or caught up in its sheer misery. Yet time after time, Watson just sits himself down and waits in a silent patience that is almost like a child waiting for a favourite story to be read out before bed. Lestrade can't shake off that absurd mental comparison; and he's tried.

Possibly it's because he always sits apart from the others in a way that lets him see everything. Mr. Holmes has to _know_ things; Dr. Watson has to _see_ things as they happen. He'll sacrifice any luxury to keep from missing out, and the wonder of it is he asks so few questions.

It never ceases to amaze Lestrade—or any of the Yarders—that a man as common in appearance as Watson can be so extraordinary. And yet he is down to his bedrock. He isn't a copper, and he's doubtless seen more wealth at 221B, but he is willing to put himself through this to serve justice. It's impressive and admirable, and the Yard would go out on a limb for him because he cares for broken laws as much as they.

Most of the time, a Yarder is isolated by his profession. They would deny being lonely, but they are set apart from the rest of London. Respectable people look at them with suspicion, wondering what they've seen and done, and not-so-respectables expect them to be brutal, unthinking plods with no more concern than the nearest gin or bribe. Both sides see them as rather mindless, unthinking toy soldiers of the law—the enforcers of the law, but not the dispensers. The world shuts them out in a self-protective instinct and few people exist outside their intricate world of work, family, and the endless ranks of widows and orphans behind their dead mates. They have power but they themselves are strangely powerless.

Dr. Watson and Mr. Holmes are two of the very few people in London that continue to have contact with them after the work is finished. They invite a copper in for a hot cup on a cold day, listen to their complaints, and Holmes will find something supportive (if queer) to say even as Watson scolds them for not tending to their injuries, walking-sores or sniffles. So within the bounds of professions, the two might be difficult to have around, but they come back, and that's the important thing.

Watson slowly reaches up only to brush snow off his mustache before it tickles him into a sneeze. Lestrade reminds himself again that he doesn't have the time for such ornamentation; gentlemen are supposed to have them, but he and Gregson know those things are still a luxury to upkeep. He'll agree with Gregson on that if nothing else.

Watson catches Lestrade's gaze and smiles slightly, sending a tiny spark of mischief through his brown eyes. Lestrade smiles back, slightly.

Not that Dr. Watson is on the level of the Yarders any more than Mr. Holmes is. Far from it. You _might_ be able to hang a gentleman; British Law even did hang an officer of the Queen's Army…well, once, anyway…but the policemen and warders and guards and even the hangman wasn't allowed to actually touch that Army Major. He murdered in cold blood, but he refused their touch all the way to the white cap and the drop.

Watson's more aware of social rules than Mr. Holmes is, and it's one of the many things that make him easier to work with. The amateur might be impatient with the system as it is, but the caste protects as well as limits. No one, not even Gregson or Hopkins, _quite_ knows where they stand with Mr. Holmes. He rides roughshod over sensibilities one minute…and the next he's utterly unaware of them.

In contrast, Watson displays his upbringing by an unfailing demonstration of manners. Even when he writes in less than flattering terms of the poorer class, he describes them in impartial ways that shows he is not of that world. To his eyes a checkered coat is rude; to his pen a man might be judged by his mannerisms more than his cheekbones and eye colour.

And he wants to be writing now. It shows in his eyes, the way he flits from man to man, the snow, the street and the snicket. He is committing it all to memory, waiting for the moment where he can sit down and put it all to his pen.

Lestrade burrows deeper into his coat before snow can collect on his lapels and run down his neck. He likes Watson genuinely; and he respects Holmes…he _might_ even like the man, but that's a question he never seems to have time to ponder.

Mr. Holmes sits apart, as he usually does. In the first years of their acquaintance his mannerisms were dismissed as the reserve of a gentleman. It is unseemly to coexist in too friendly a fashion after all, for it can bring dangerous notions to a common copper about equality. Slowly, Lestrade grew less sure about Mr. Holmes' attitude. So much of him was strange anyway! His distance looks as though it is…well…protective in a way; as if he honestly can't handle being too close to someone.

He looks out the snicket into the road. The cobblestones are losing definition. The night air is growing thick, like shredded paper in a parade. The street-lamps are away from them in both directions but he can see their distant glow as they reflect off the tiny, spinning pinwheels. More snow falls now; he can hear the tiny pat-pat-patter as they rain upon his bowler.

Something about tonight makes him feel exposed and vulnerable. He misses wearing a Bobby's helmet. The bowler is the next-best thing, capable of blocking a heavy blow even from a club or a kick…but it doesn't cover the head like that old metal cap.

Bells chime from all directions, some slightly out of true. Soul's Midnight has passed. It is now the fourth hour.

No one speaks; the gloom is eerie, shifting and whispering. They hear the slow, steady foot-falls of a Constable crunching his way down the road. The glow of the bull's-eye clipped to his belt demonstrates his arrival long before they see him. Lestrade remembers the nights in those horrid crabshells. No stockings had enough wool to keep your feet warm in those things. As bad as raw cowhide.

He strolls his way slowly across the snicket; orders reminded him not to look in this particular little alleyway between buildings, and he does a good job of being ignorant. Amazing how many steps it takes him to clear the open space. He vanishes into the snowstorm by degrees, and with him, the night is restored to deepest gloom.

Lestrade goes so far as to hold his pocket-watch but doesn't check the time. He reminds himself of the bells; were it not for his duties he wouldn't even need a watch. The churches and factory whistles are the timepieces of the sleeping giant.

A peruke of snow falls off Watson's bowler with a soft sound. The doctor twitches slightly in a self-amused way but otherwise stays silent.

London grows silent in the same speed that the snow collects.

Their breath adds to the translucency of the air. Snow is not like ice; its cold creeps up on you just when you think you've gotten tough. In one moment a man can be fine; the next, freezing. Lestrade keeps an eye on his men for signs of dangerous chill. The uniforms are fine enough…but few men can afford good clothes _underneath_ the coat, jacket, collar and trousers.

Something happens with Sherlock Holmes.

For nearly three hours in this slowly-freezing hellhole, the man has sat as calmly as a rock on the coastline. Not that he isn't capable of inaction—he is, to an amazing level. But Lestrade saw the half-open drawer when he came to pick them up and the way Watson's bright face had grown flat with an old pain as he greeted them and acted like nothing was wrong even as he and Holmes pretended to a brittle civility that ignored the empty needle at the desk.

Watson tries the best he can—and Lord knows his best is better than most—but this is _Sherlock Holmes_ he is trying to save, and the man's problems are in proportion to his advantages. As long as Lestrade has known the man, Mr. Holmes has been tortured by his own intellect.

He can't imagine what it is like to be so smart he can learn a new language in months, or research dead musicians and their musical forms within a year. Man may as well fly before he can comprehend that sort of brain. But through it all, no matter what he has learned and what he might have gained from the learning…Lestrade has never witnessed anything like _happiness_ on the man. A problem is only solved to make room for the next and life is THAT simple for Holmes.

To be that tortured…perhaps the cocaine does something to him that it does not for other men. He once claimed in Lestrade's hearing that the drug eased his ennui (a word Lestrade had to ask Gregson about just to make certain he understood).

The notion that sanity is dependant on the sting of a needle into the muscle of the arm is horrific…and yet Lestrade can't argue with the evidence of his eyes. In the beginning, the young man had been gifted but unable to focus. Months could pass where he did almost nothing that anyone could determine…and then one day, _something_ happened, at about the same time that he roomed up with Watson. He started solving cases at a rate that was incredible enough, but year after year the cases…and the successes…never went slack. Holmes did benefit from mild doses of the cocaine (worse things wind up on his case-desk). But they've all changed over the years (even Lestrade will concede grudgingly to some differences)…and the drug is more Holmes' life than ever.

He still solves cases…but there's a strangeness to his methods that worries Lestrade. He's too old a copper to not know when a man is standing on the line between himself and disaster. Perhaps it's because of Watson that Lestrade feels so pained about the cocaine. It hurts Watson to see his friend in its grip. Holmes while he is in it…can't even notice.

He watches Holmes sit upright, keen as a dog on the scent. The carpet about his shoulders falls backward into the snow. Those grey eyes are too bright and active on any day but now he is waiting, waiting for something they can't hear yet.

He never reacted to the sound of PC Bright walking down the street. Had he been able to tell the Bobby from their target so easily? Even before he became a user, he was eerily capable with his senses.

On the other side of Lestrade, Watson is slowly adopting _a look_. Lestrade has seen it before; Holmes is expecting something…and Watson knows something is about to happen. In these moments, two men could hardly be better united.

Holmes almost quivers. He doesn't notice the snowflakes slowly freezing his eyebrows white as he tilts his head. The murky sky pours lace from above and covers him from head to toe as he pulls off his silk hat in order to hear even better. Lestrade is struck in a past memory: Sherlock Holmes being given praise any policeman would die for, praise from no less than a Royal, _and it meant nothing to him_. The words had just been blessings from a god he never worshipped. The storm means just that much to him.

He probably doesn't even know or care he's freezing to death. For him the case is drawing close and he cannot think of anything else.

Lestrade strains like the old dog at the leash, but he still hears nothing. Holmes does hear something, and is about to lead them to the chase.

Just like old times.

The Inspector can't regret these moments. He knows too well what will happen. Holmes will stage a coup and the Charter Thief will be behind bars with his forgery materials in a museum and two countries will no longer wish to wage war with each other because the cause of the war will be proven counterfeit. More importantly, Holmes will finally explain how he knew the man's identity and what he was doing walking down this wretched road at such a godless hour on this misbegotten night.

Mr. Holmes will probably force them to take the credit for it—again—but perhaps someday he'll pay enough attention to the Yard that he'll learn that they CAN'T take another man's credit; that his name is in the case-files if not the papers.

And Watson will go home and write up their latest adventure even if it never gets published or read.

For Lestrade is in the presence of more than one drug at 221B Baker Street.

Holmes' drug is his work, and his cocaine is only a part of it. He lives how he can, and cannot imagine another sort of existence. He ignores Watson's entreaties…ignores his efforts to help. Even when Watson grows desperate and seeks to find some grounds to argue, Holmes will not change his mind until he is ready to make that change.

For Holmes believes Watson is a hypocrite.

He heard them in the stair-well this evening. Things said that shouldn't have been said, and least of all where an outsider like himself should hear. Holmes can be cruel without trying, but when he tries he is without peer.

Lestrade can hear the words even now. Watson telling him to put aside his drug for the sake of his life.

_Can you put aside your drug, Watson? What are you without your adventures, my dear fellow? _ A drawl, such as can only come from a man within cocaine's grip, slipped under the door and to the Inspector's shaken witness. _"You are as addicted to the pursuit of the case and its conclusion, are you not? And what is your chemical drug but what lies within the ink-bottle? _

It doesn't matter that Watson needs to be a part of something, and that he needs to write as badly as most men need to eat. As long as Watson tries to force Holmes into giving up the cocaine…Holmes will seek to criticize his friend's own drug…and that drug is _writing_.

Watson criticizes Holmes' behaviors, and Holmes does the same to Watson's storytelling. Two grown men, aware of their goodness and flaws like few others can, are incapable of hiding their feelings within those small bachelor rooms. They are friends, and friends know how to draw blood.

"_Now!"_

Sherlock Holmes' face is alight like Christmas candles. His eyes shine like witchglass and his blanket finishes its fall to the stones. Watson is rising with him, a smooth, single moment as ready for danger as the standing Constables. The doctor's face is flushed into smooth lines while hectic color dances over Holmes' white face like cherries.

Lestrade steps aside, complying with the plan as he and Cooper duck to the back of the snicket. The other three are heading out front, herding this mystery forger to the box-trap of Holmes' devising.

Twenty years ago this would have gone completely against Lestrade's morals. A civilian can help, but they should never put themselves at risk. That is the job of the Yard.

But Twenty years ago, Dr. Watson hadn't been around.

They might fight, but they are friends and they are a team. And they will get their man. Good or ill, they are a solid match as good as any two coppers on the same beat. Nothing will get between them unless they let it.

Lestrade hopes nothing ever will, but he'll know when it does. That will be the day Watson writes less…and Mr. Holmes leaves London.


	14. Ring out the Bells

_Ring__out__, __wild__bells__, to the __wild__sky__,_

_The flying cloud, the frosty light;_

_The year is dying in the night;_

_Ring__out__, __wild__bells__, and let him die._

He wasn't home, of course. It was a holiday and he was working. Later she would learn against her will that he was putting himself into the fringe of East London and pulling a young family away from too much gin and flames.

It was cool that year, the last day of the year. The snowmelt made the air so heavy, heavy enough that the lungs had to strain to breathe outside and the coal-fired stoves shocked the senses once one was indoors. Call it significant; call it poignant for the burning and the loss of lives that followed in that chill, wet night. It was still just...only...one more night to the majority of London. They might want to believe it is something greater and more significant...but if debts wait for no holiday, why should they even observe? It is another night; another chance to work or huddle up by the flame and stay warm and hope for the warmth of spring.

The Old New Year, in springtime, makes more sense than marking a year in the bitter slog of winter. What's to celebrate about living long enough to see January? Make it March again, like it was in the old days. One could be proud of that. One could believe in the immortality of one more year to see that winter was gone and the rest was crisp winds and brief chills melting under the shy sun.

_Ring__out__ the old, __ring__ in the new,_

_Ring__, happy __bells__, across the snow:_

_The year is going, let him go;_

_Ring__out__ the false, __ring__ in the true._

Tonight her family would be at home, their home, her first time without their presence. They would be drinking and singing endless songs while the children and long-extended relations played about and too much cheer for the furnishings to bear. She had given her regrets; pleaded excellent reasons for her health…and perhaps later she would feel some small amount of guilt for the relief she felt for being away from their stifling influence just this once.

_Ring__out__ the grief that saps the mind,_

_For those that here we see no more,_

_Ring__out__ the feud of rich and poor,_

_Ring__ in redress to all mankind._

Tonight her husband will come in late. He will be tired but not too tired to set his collar and cuffs into the linen-basket for the Monday Wash. He will most likely give a summary of his day in the most basic language and then collapse on top of the bedcovers as soon as he knows he is clean enough to do so. London is his livelihood; not a celebration. One might say it happens but once a year. He will retort that it happens EVERY year, and that is enough for his sensibilities.

_Ring__out__ a slowly dying cause,_

_And ancient forms of party strife;_

_Ring__ in the nobler modes of life,_

_With sweeter manners, purer laws._

Later she will learn that he spend half his evening at the nearest police-station, staffed with battered women nursing their black eyes and cracked bones on their way to the hospital. They will admit to the _damages_, but it will all mean six fruitless hours of trying to get the women to admit there is anything wrong with their men. The men of their friends, sisters, mothers and daughters are different…but admit that their own men are un-manned enough to strike them in drink or anger? That would be a blow to the last pride they posses.

Inspector Lestrade expects no successes on these or any such nights. He tries anyway. Because that is the law. And who knows? Someday it might be different.

_Ring__out__ the want, the care the sin,_

_The faithless coldness of the times;_

_Ring__out__, __ring__out__ my mournful rhymes,_

_But __ring__ the fuller minstrel in._

The buskers along the canals plied their trade un-accosted this year—a small miracle left over from Christmas no doubt—but they were still witness to the ugliness of the city. They played for the well-dressed landed gentry on their way to and fro the parties in their silk hats and boutonnières, but the solitude of their snowy serenades were marked by the small, dark shadows of the children huddled up in the alleyways, wanting to hear some music without being told to scarper off.

_Ring__out__ false pride in place and blood,_

_The civic slander and the spite;_

_Ring__ in the love of truth and right,_

_Ring__ in the common love of good._

Years later, she will learn that a young girl stood up and testified against her own father, and saved the life of her mother. The Bobbies that arrested him will swear to that. When they brought him in it was with the sacrifice of several teeth and intact ribs. Small steps. She only knows that a young girl with eyes enlarged from hunger and fear comes to her school on the morrow.

Missie, as she wants to be called, isn't the smartest girl in her school. She isn't the cleverest. But while it takes her time to learn something, it sticks once it's in, and three years later she is an instructor for many of the girls. She can speak the language of the East End, without causing shame or harm when she tells them to clean up or boxes the ear for impertinence. She's of their kidney, and she reaches them were the Mistress of the School cannot.

_Ring__out__ old shapes of foul disease,_

_Ring__out__ the narrowing lust of gold;_

_Ring__out__ the thousand wars of old,_

_Ring__ in the thousand years of peace._

The Bobbies walk in heavy shoes that raise blisters and wounds without layers of stocking and an awkward shuffle of the feet. Many of them disrupt quarrels that night; and too-eager festivities. They accept wild, drunken swings and punches deflected through the heavy wool of their coats and hard brass buttons. The verbal blows come from a distance, with the confidence of the dog that yaps at its betters on the other side of the fence. Those they can only ignore. The plainclothed detectives are hardly better off if they have freedom of movement without the heavy coats. Their shoes are thin leather and not proofed against the frozen puddles as they chase after the drug-addled man with the knives in each hand. They splash through soggy, half-congealed puddles and rotting black snow and stinking garbage with swifter movements but less protection. It falls to their side to pull out the whistles and truncheons faster, for it is their blood that will get spilled the faster.

Mr. Holmes was there, she hears later in the warmth of her kitchen between kettles of steaming soup and pan-breads. Him and the doctor too. A criminal wanted on three government warrants for his crimes. Why would he come to London to hide, of all places?

She hears the girls chirp their wonder as she stirs, but she knows why. Because London is one of the largest cities in the civilised world. Because it is one of the most crowded…and because it is the land of opportunity. A place where a man will hope to vanish within the throngs and melt into the masses with his crimes unspoken and intact.

And she does not doubt, sirrah, that it might work for them. Crimes go unnoticed and unavenged on a daily basis. Her husband's hollow eyes are proof of that. But if the sort is so poor as to take the attention of Mr. Holmes…why then, she doubts even London is large enough of a rabbit-warren. Because he can pull out of work-hours and needs no desk. He can spend as much time as he needs to track. And track he does.

One more criminal; one more arrest.

London safer by one more life.

One less thing creeping about that her husband and his folk have to worry about. _Perhaps_, she tells herself, _one less grey hair, one less line about the face._

_One more year to live._

_Ring__ in the valiant man and free,_

_The larger heart, the kindlier hand;_

_Ring__out__ the darkness of the land,_

_Ring__ in the Christ that is to be._


	15. Cold Truths

The advantage of Watson's room: Warm air rose. His bed was an appreciable distance from the grate, and the tiny window was high enough that he could catch the smallest slips of sunrise off the roof-tops when the sun was closest to the earth.

And he so enjoyed being warm; cold affected his constitution, but what was uncomfortably sweltering to his closest friend and their landlady was barely of note. His military days remained in his stamp; in his blood that seemed to run warmer than it ever had and now slowed and grew sluggish like water in the presence of freezing winds.

Even the coziest of rooms are not impervious to the winter blasts from the North Sea.

The doctor rose that morning with a familiar burning on the tip of his nose. He opened his eyes and watched in silence as a pearl-grey dawn lightened what had been the weeping ink of his night-time window. Moisture had crept inside through a flaw in the pane, and it slid down as silent as snowfall before his gaze. Pleasant as it felt to be within the cocoon of warmth, it was time to rise. The fire had drawn low; Mrs. Hudson would be below him in minutes, coaxing the coal back to life.

He waited a moment more as if to remind himself it was all a matter of choice, and pulled off the covers. In concession to winter his pants1 went to the cuff but the drawstrings were an aggravation; on his restless nights at least one string would un-tie and then he would have to tug it all back down and re-tie. That finished, he quickly reached beneath his bedclothes and pulled out his thick dressing-gown. It had shared the bed with him and carried his body-heat in its quilting. He donned it with relief and set his sash with a will. It was chilly, but not chilly enough that he would keep his night-cap on. He set it under his pillow for the next time and stepped inside his slippers. The carpet muffled his foot-falls and sheltered him from directly touching the cold floor-boards.

In the bath he ran the water for his shave and frowned at how even a short moustache appeared to grow overnight. The sink was small but so was the bath; the warm water took more chill out of the air and he dressed easily before the heat could disperse. On some mornings he'd been forced to knock a thin sheet of ice out of the bowl before even running the hot-water geysers.

If the cold continued, Mrs. Hudson would move her house-plants further upstairs. Watson rather liked her spiky succulents; they reminded him of India and the desert respectively. He combed through his hair and clipped his watch upon his waistcoat with a flourish. He had four layers on as a proper gentleman ought; he was ready for any drop in temperature.

The landing was briefly warmer as he stepped out; he smelled baking. The kitchen must be going at full-blast to add to the heat of the house. With a smile he thought of breakfast. It would set him good until he went to work.

Dr. Peters' practice was far away, and even further on a day like this. But the rooms would be warm. The man was wealthy enough that he needn't worry about the concerns of coal, or insulation, sealed windows or spending food money to keep one's rooms above freezing. All he had to do was fortify himself and get there.

And put up with Dr. Peters' valet…Watson smiled to himself with a much wryer twist than before. He could ignore Meyers for the most part. As he understood it, a successful man has a valet, and Meyers was simply doing what was expected of him. Today might be a worthwhile venture.

*

Lestrade knew it was cold when the train whistles off Paddington adopted a particular strangling sort of shrill; steam could freeze almost as soon as it escaped, and that was happening today. He grimaced to himself and rolled briefly back under the blankets, but guilt made him sit up just as quickly.

"Oh, Lord, it's not time yet, is it?" On the other side of the bed, a once-soundly asleep PC Barrett groaned. "I'm not getting up until I hear a bloody rooster crowing somewhere."

"This is Paddington Street, George, not Leadhall! The closest you're going to get to a rooster is Mr. Cox and he'll be crowing as soon as it strikes a quarter to seven." Lestrade decided to get the pain over with. He hurried out from beneath what was every carpet in his possession (three this year, plus the coverlet and a threadbare goosedown). With a speed to surprise himself he was into his house-shoes and pulled his dressing-gown from underneath his temporary flat-mate. Despite the fact that Lestrade was the ranking of the two, Barrett displayed a fine sense of Republicanism and groaned again, choosing not to follow the example of his superior.

"What's he going to be crowing about?" Barrett wanted to know.

"Same as every morning. Mr. Culbard is going to beat him to the first cab-fare of the morning to the High Street."

"They do this every morning?" Barrett was interested enough to peek out from under the covers. Lestrade was shivering as he found a muffler in the wardrobe and wrapped his neck inside it.

"Every morning."

"Why doesn't Mr. Cox just get up earlier?"

"Mr. Cox has the care of six children and Mr. Culbard is a deathless bachelor. When he's late, you know there's been a gallimaufry in the Twilight World." Lestrade cheered up as soon as he found his fingerless gloves. "Hah!" His breath steamed in the air. "I'm going to see to the fire. You might as well stay put, George."

"I thought Constables were supposed to wait on the sergeants." Barrett grinned at him.

"We'd both be dead of frost by now…" Lestrade nipped to the scuttle and filled the lidded bucket up with hot ashes and cherry-red coals. "Hang on..." He warmed his hands over the top a moment and carried the well-insulated bucket to Barrett's side of the bed. "Let that warm up the room a bit…I'm going to see to the bath."

"You think the pipes are thawed?" Barrett asked with hope naked in his eyes.

"Ought to be…the Johnsons got back late last night."

"I didn't hear a thing."

"That's because you were asleep, George. A tree could fall on you and you'd just dream of pines." Lestrade put his back to the rising flames and tucked his hands under his arms. His face still felt the chill of the room. It was a great improvement from George's tiny flat.

"All right, George. Now that you're thawed enough to speak…how is it you're homeless for the week?"

"I thought I made myself perfectly clear." George Barrett complained.

"No doubt, but I'm not used to translating English around chattering teeth. You sounded like an army of stilt-dancers on a plank floor!"

The Constable sighed and rolled his eyes. "It's very simple. The furnace broke—"

"How did a new furnace break?"

"How did you know it was a new furnace?"

"George…" Lestrade groaned. "George…you _told_ me it was a new furnace. Last month. You were bragging about how this would be one winter where you wouldn't have to knock the ice off the—"

"Ahem!" Barrett interrupted. "I'm no mechanic, but I'm guessing that the furnace broke because it was over-burdened."

"The insulating jacket should keep that from happening."

"Normally, I'd agree with you. But in this particular case, the jacket had a hole in it."

"And it had a hole got in it how?"

"Offhand, probably because of the burst pipes."

"Hang on a mo' George. How did the pipes burst if the furnace was working?"

"It wasn't working _at the time_, Geoffrey!" Barrett spoke patiently. "The pipes burst because of the cubic pressure in the pipes. The landlord paid for the furnace in gold French florins to hear him complain, but he was skint with the plumbers!"

"Oh." Lestrade stared. "Ah." He thought a bit. "Cheap solder, eh?"

"Probably half tar!"

"Oh, for…so the pipes burst…"

"And the water got under the furnace…"

"And the hole in the furnace."

"So the furnace and the pipes are now burst?"

"Well, no, the pipes were fixed, but they didn't check the furnace. When the furnace burst, everyone was out of the building and nobody knew about it…"

"How long did that go?"

"I came home to find the children shoe-skating in the basement."

Lestrade, who was fatherless, snickered in a superior way that tends to get rewarded by Nature with sons of his own someday. "Go on."

"By the time the wife got home, it was so cold the cast-iron at the windows snapped off in my hands, so now they're all wide open!"

"How did the wife take to having to spend the night at her mother's?"

"Not well, but at least they'll ignore her while they're spoiling the grandchildren." Barrett half-groaned. "And there isn't room for one more."

"So you bachelor yourself out with me? Pity you." Lestrade tutted. "Well the Johnsons made it back while you were shivering in your sleep, and they always coke up their basement rooms to the limit."2

"Must come in handy with their washing-business."

"It's not really a large washing-business, they just do the fancy bits for the gents."

"Still…they must be very good at it if all they have to do are the fine linens." Barrett yawned.

"For what they charge? I daresay." Lestrade pulled bath linens out of the small chest at the door and quickly nipped out the door. This was always a chilly part of London, with the Eastern winds adding to the chaotic pressures from all corners. "Warm up. I'll be back in half an hour."

It takes courage for a man to take a bath inside a building that was barely above freezing only eight hours before. Lestrade first made certain all was working.

Barrett had come to Lestrade's doorstep more dead than alive, worn out and frozen from a full day's twenty-mile walk outside in the winds and powdery snows _before_ he came home to find his tiny rooms unlivable. A man of duty, he had seen to his wife and children before turning to the first person he could think of, and that happened to be his old companion of the beat, Geoffrey Lestrade.

A bathroom full of hot water left to stand is a wonderful way to produce (for however brief a time), gently radiant heat in what is normally the chilliest room in a building. Ever since the cold snap had snapped, the two baths had been strictly rationed out with time and bather, ensuring that at least half of the day would have that warm, standing water against the pressing chill. It meant damp, but damp helped against the painfully dry heat of the coal.

Lestrade had turned over his time at the bath to thaw out a fellow man of the Met. He was more than ready to wash up now even if it meant knocking bits of ice off from behind his ears as he did so.

Back in Lestrade's two small rooms, Barrett was taking the teapot off the coals and pouring a generous measure of ginger tea. Ginger was not the cheapest spice, but somewhere along the markets Lestrade had discovered live roots sold by a Lascar and purchased them for what he claimed was a song. Mrs. Collins had to look them up in a dictionary to know how to pot them, but now the kitchen was full of spiky-leaved gingerroot-plants snugged up against the large stone fireplace where the winter sun struck in the morn.

Lestrade kept a pot of the sliced roots simmering from first freeze to last, and Barrett was grateful. He warmed his large hands around the oversized kettle first, and then poured his guest-cup to the rim. The steam was fragrant and tickled his nose, making him sneeze. Done, he squatted on his heels with his back to the fire and held the cup as it cooled to drinking. Before long the ginger was at work: his face flushed with heat and his steam puffed like a dragon's.

He was making his way through a second cup when Lestrade came back, his short hair black and wet from bathing. "My word, man." He exclaimed. "You're brave." As Lestrade shut the door with a shivering bang, he rose and lifted a fresh cup of ginger to the madman. "Is _that_ why you cut your hair so short?"

"Why'd you think I c-cut it?" Lestrade wondered as he pulled the steaming cup to his chest. They were men and away from the stultifying presence of women and society eyes. Here they could share good old oversized metal cups.

"At first thought, you'd gone mad." Barrett confessed. "Most of us allow a bit of length this time of year, following the advice of our betters in Nature." He eyed his old friend critically.

"And you didn't report me? Sloppy work, George." Lestrade sipped the scalding drink. "Got to get this in you fast," he explained. "Otherwise it'll be cold before you've drunk your way half down."

"I know. I found that out the hard way. You won't find yourself smothered in bed, will you lad? Not by half."

"No, but the landlady is paying to repair the walls come spring. I daresay we'll have a different place to live by then." With thoughts of a warmer future, they shared the pot and a covered dish of last night's cold sandwiches. They really were cold. "Where are you headed off to today?"

"Same beat as yesterday, but third time 'round I get to move to the Station. Might be a touch warmer."

"Argh." Lestrade scowled as he split a chipped-beef sandwich and gave Barrett half. "Are they still thinking they'll find Janson that way? Should be sending everyone over to Chiswick!"

"My badge agrees with you, but these aching bones agree with the notion of standing part of the day in a nice warm train station."

"You're going to come back glazed from frozen steam like frosting off a cake, man!" Lestrade exclaimed. "That's if you can get back here at all!"

"Says the man who all but shaved himself bald in concession to the weather." Barrett sniffed. "I declare to Peter. Try it the other way for once. At least grow something about the chops.

"I haven't the time to toy with accessories like that." Lestrade said patiently. "And the muffler will help if I have to be outside today."

-

The cold seems to grow worse just by facing it. Watson holds his breath and buries himself deep inside the depths of his heaviest coat and turns to the wind. His eyes water and burn. He blinks harshly and a scrap of sunlight burns his eyes even further. For a moment he wishes he was with Holmes on a case, but Holmes has been almost diffident in his absence of late. This suggests difficult things, for the doctor knows—or at least believes—Holmes has reasons for sparing him.

If it is because of his finances, Watson has only himself to blame. He has not been charging what he should, and permitting extensions and credit when most businessmen would be firm. But it is a hard thing to uphold life and then insist there is nothing wrong with demanding the fee for a bottle of medicine before a family's coal bill is attended.

Matters will work out, he knows. Matters always work out. In the meantime, Holmes is without his assistance and he is feeling exceptionally lonely on his walks between Baker Street and his practice.

He keeps his head down against the wind and hopes his bowler will not come off in the sudden gusts. A proper hat is tight enough to cause a headache, but it has been some time since his was re-shaped. His clothes are neat; his moustache clipped; his bearing as military perfect as ever and as respectable as one could hope. But he hopes to be paid for a few patients soon. His hat needs reblocking. Meyers says nothing but his eyes linger on his hat whenever he sees it.

Watson dislikes being reminded (if politely) of his penury. A hat is a small enough matter compared to the majority of this city. Children are out on the streets in less than a quarter of the cloth that protects his body from the elements. He shudders to see them, for half the time they appear to be courting death. They run about him, some laughing and shrieking, most in thin pampooties cut of whatever leather or cloth scraps could be found at the rag-shop because real shoes are not within the means of their families. He hears the half-admiring, half-contemptuous comments of the finer dressed upon these ragamuffins.

Their seeming immunity is not to be admired, not even for a moment. They are running and shrieking in an effort to be warm. Once they stop they will huddle up like little birds, backs to a lamp-post or a sheltered corner of a building. They are looking for reasons to be warm, and there is desperation in the children. Their homes may not be any warmer than the streets…but this time of year they are content to be out of the wind and direct snow and ice.

He passes by one of the town pumps; a policeman weighed down in his heavy winter wool has taken gigantic hands like mallets and broke the ice upon the handles. His gloves protect him from cold-scald and he pumps a measure of water out for the cluster of women and children needing water. The cold makes one thirsty. Most will not be able to heat that water for tea, but tea is a luxury and water is a need.

The policeman lifts his head and a familiar face grins at him between brim and chin strap. "Good morning to you, Doctor." PC Lions salutes. "Out early this morning, sir."

"Best to get it over with." Watson agrees. "How's that leg?"

"Good and fine, sir. Good and fine. Not even a twinge." He touches his once-wounded thigh with a glove. "Take care, Doctor."

They part ways. Even words are vulnerable to the winds.

Watson reaches the edge of the street and stops to look about. The pressed brick of the streets gleam like obsidian under a basketry of dry snow. He watches how the horses step delicately and chooses to be as careful.

His practice will be warm. He will strain his coal budget for the week, going past what he told Peters he could take…but he cannot bring himself to justify being stingy. Not just for himself, but for the people who will come to him for help today.

-

Despite his large size, Inspector Gregson could move swiftly. He did so just then, spinning half out of the way of a barreling Lestrade from the outdoors, his ever-present smoking teapot safely elevated over the little man's head.

"I nearly spilled this all over you, Lestrade!"

"Why didn't you?" Lestrade shot back. "It would have been the decent thing to do." White with cold, the small man did a creditable job of speaking around blue lips turned to wood and chattering teeth.

Gregson recovered instantly. "As you said. Because it would be the decent thing to do." He smirked. "I'm not decent."

"Silly me. I m-must have frostbite on the brain."

"Jack's bitten no doubt." Gregson shook his head. "Get something hot in you before the ice reaches what passes for your heart."

"Yes, mum." Lestrade tried to be scathing.

"Mum nothing. Mums don't have to fill out death inquiry forms." Gregson sniffed and with a sudden expression of glee, poured a small cup out of his pot and handed it over. "Drink up. Your heart should be able to take it."

"You're just trying to get me killed." Lestrade accused. But he took the cup. "So what's the big news?"

"What big news?"

"Where I'm headed today."

"What makes you think you're headed out?"

"You're being nice to me. I saw you give one of your cigars to Athelson before he dropped. This is the same thing."

Gregson gave up all pretense and snickered. "Too right. You're headed _out_. But if you fail, _I'll_ have to step up. I'm not eager to die of Arctic desiccation just yet." An expression of fake concern crossed his reddened cheeks. "Besides, I'm not sure I can fit in where you have to go."

Lestrade forgot to drink. He hung on to the boiling-hot clay cup and took in the sight of Gregson. Behind the big man, men were shuffling awkwardly and looking anywhere else but here.

"So I take it I'm not being sent to a place polluted with big puffed-up Saxons."

"Heh. No. Brother Jerome asked for help. Would rather not help anyway. My minister is on the outs with your little Friar."

"He's not a friar, and—oh…" Lestrade closed his eyes for a moment. "Gregson, you've got the crystal ball, I see. Is my future going to be crawling after Tunnel-rats again?"

"_Dammne_, Lestrade. How did you know I've been steaming your mail open?"

"Double hah, Euclid!" Lestrade snarled. "In this weather, steams the _only_ way you can open up the mail." He underscored his point with a gulp of Gregson's awful tea, brewed so thick and oily and bitter that no amount of milk or sugar could ever redeem it.

"What in the name of the Blessed Dog Rose are you doing, Gregson?" Morton wondered on his way past.

"Saving Lestrade's life." Gregson shot back without turning a hair. "Raising his temperature up before he has to go back outside."

"Carry on."

Lestrade grumbled under his breath and peeled off his muffler, ring by ring, to shake out the bits of cinder and ice that had lodged into the small crannies. He shivered all over and quickly re-wrapped it. "Cut to the chase, Gregson. I could spend half the morning reading the report, or I can just ask you. Sooner I know, the sooner I'll be out. We're wasting daylight."

Gregson smirked one last time, but without his usual level of contempt. "Tunnel rats."

"Where?"

"Off the old culverts. They're frozen solid, that's the good news."

"What's the bad news?" Lestrade asked without hope. "If Brother Jerome is caught up in this…"

Gregson dropped all pretense. "There's a family of crawlers gone missing. They like to stick around there, and that Brother thinks they actually live down in those culverts."

"They probably do." Lestrade said unhappily. "When you're talking _family_, in _which_ sense of the word are you meaning?"

"There's no telling. They're probably kith more than kin. After so many years of sticking together in the streets and alleyways, they're probably more attached to each other than the actual blood-kin what threw 'em out on the streets."

Lestrade rubbed at his temples. "All right. Give me what you've got."

-

Watson has to pull his glove off with his teeth to manipulate the key in the lock. The still warmth of the hall strikes his face full force and he steps in hesitantly. His desert-blasted eyes burn and then all is darkness as he struggles to readjust his vision for indoors.

The Practice is a quiet one, the best of Queen Anne Street. Perhaps some day he might afford such a place for himself. For now he is content to be accepted as locum by such a distinguished physician as Dr. Peters. The man is close to retirement, hence his long vacations…but Watson is too new and raw and without the proper connexions to even think of purchasing the practice.

The old man is good enough at what he does, but his reputation is such that his lucrative clients hesitate to come to his temporary replacement. Watson has been here every day of this week and he has spent half of that time making wheels of his thumbs. After the second day he broke under his own boredom and started availing himself of the man's medical books and journals.

Financially, this locum post is another disaster. On an erudite level, he is a step closer to Paradise. Peters had been a military surgeon like himself (possibly a reason why he was chosen?) but a long, successful one with a proud history of exploring the world. Watson's brain has never been happier as he devours accounts of rare diseases or physiology from those who have gone before him.

The maid serves tea with barely a word and he stands by the fire of the consultation room a moment before he checks the appointment book. There are no new calls; his first case will be in the hour, a simple example of persistent cough that needs no more treatment than syrup of lobelia.

He would not get rich for these two weeks. He would barely be able to make the rent. And yet when he complained of his worries to Holmes, his fellow lodger had been insistent that he take the position.

_Not all coin is paid with metal, dear fellow. Sitting about with me in Baker Street must stagnate your brain as surely as inactivity does to me. Be his locum for the fortnight! Now that you are well enough to travel, you ought to remember how much you enjoyed it._

And Holmes was right. He was glad to be out, even in the misery of this terrible day, and if any clients came it would be despite the weather.

Holmes had even dismissed the rent as a small matter, offering to allow him the opportunity to regain lost time in the future. "Experience comes first," he had said while in his languid contemplation of the ceiling's plaster.

-

Brother Jerome was waiting for Lestrade inside a chapel that was barely above freezing. His cloth was plain but there were many layers of it; they were both small men but the cleric had a stooped-over demeanor that implied he was thinking a great deal no matter what the time. In this particular case, he probably was.

"The whole family of them," he began as a way of hello. Jerome had been a policeman in his youth; he still thought like one when emergencies came. "Two old men, I think of them as the grandfathers, one has a wife still…two men about our age, their wives, and if you total up the young ones we have about eight. I've seen them with more and less…in the summer months the children have itchy feet and look outside for work."

"Could they not be working now?"

"One of the sons is a stoker for the metalworks." Jerome burrowed deeper into his hand-sewn-coat of rags. "As of now he is the only one with a true job. The patriarchs are all ill from the mines. The women can get a bit once in a while helping with their needles, but it's after Christmas and jobs have fallen again. There's nothing for it." He reached up a moment and stroked at his trim spade beard. It was hardly a respectable showing for a holy man, but Jerome had never known how to look respectable. Weary-looking blue eyes peered through a mask of sun-scored lines. "They're crawlers, plain and simple. I give them soup and what stale bread the bakeries give us, and they help a bit by watching the children who have the mothers who need to go work. Mostly that's all they can do."

"Why would they be gone?" Lestrade was writing as fast as he could, and planned to leave the book behind just in case. PC Crane and Swepston stood at attention.

"Been a hard winter." Jerome said flatly. "They're not troublesome folk, but there's those that enjoy looking down upon the weaker. A rough lot came in three nights ago. Too rough…had the look of drink about them. I told them one night was all I would accept of them, but by then all the Johns were gone and I couldn't catch up with 'em in the street. Likely they were scared off."

"They wouldn't be in another shelter?" Lestrade asked without hope.

"How many shelters does London have?" Jerome did not act with impatience to Lestrade's question. He had to ask much worse for the record. "They only came here. Like I said…peaceful, untroublesome…humble. They really can't work much, and that's the difference. People look down upon 'em too much as it is."

"Where do you think they went?" Lestrade blew on his hands before putting them in his pockets.

"I think they took the Old Culverts. Hardly anyone goes there, especially this time of year! But the water's froze stiff. There might be some places to shelter up still…so long as they're away from the ice."

"Have to go and see." Lestrade gnawed on his lip. "Swepston, come with me. Crane you'll have to stay put."

Jerome looked troubled. "Swepston's the bigger."

"He's thinner by half." Lestrade smiled. "Even thinner when he can get his big boots off. I've seen the man in crawlspaces before."

-

It is past noon.

Watson looks at the consulting-room clock, and then at his watch even as the bells chime off three different churches. He snaps the lid with finality. Three clients had been lined up today; they had never shown. No doubt due to the weather…but still. He admits to disappointment within himself. Meyers' disappointment in him is palpable as he sets the luncheon-tray and a spare napkin. Watson ignores the man with an effort.

Not even any walk-ins, which he _shouldn't_ have expected. Walk-ins were for the struggling doctor, young and desperate to build up a client base. Dr. Peters was well-established and approaching the lines of sainthood. He was of the stripe where it was an honour for his acceptance of your visiting card.

Watson can't conceive of such notoriety; he knows it is earned over time and effort. As he thinks it over, the accomplishments that come with age have never felt so far. He is a worn out, tired and blood-sick veteran who is almost desperate to salve the wounds of the world…and he has never felt so…young.

He looks upon the wall of books (and he has read over half now), and the tasteful placement of rare paintings and lithographs of faraway places. At one time this room had been his dream. Visiting this manifestation of fantasy has shown its tarnish. This is a doctor who has done everything he has planned for, worked for, and fought for…

The reality is this is not as satisfying as he'd hoped.

Dr. Peters had everything…but he still lacked. Once a book is read, Watson can remember most of it; the titles he had hoped to read were not as impressive as he had expected now that he'd the chance to examine the pages. Peters has a wife but it appears to be a partnership, not a marriage. Watson wonders if he devalues _partnerships_ with the comparison; he and Holmes have a better arrangement in their rooms that what Peters keeps in these four walls!

_Were I to have a wife, I would celebrate her where the world could see it. I would have her blend her presence here so women and children would feel assured and welcome. _

Dr. Peters had children. They were grown and seldom visited. Watson knew the facts of their existence, but they were conspicuous in their absence.

He thinks about it all. If Holmes had meant to help him, then the man had helped him far more than he could have possibly imagined. Watson sees the mirror of his own dreams and there is a better one lying beneath.

He does not fully experience the truth of this…not yet.

He is halfway through his desultory luncheon when the doorbell rings and Meyers adopts an insulted air of surprise.

"Dr. Watson?" Inspector Lestrade is standing awkwardly on the doorstep, pulling his hat off to hold in his hands. His new haircut, too short for this weather, makes Watson shiver to see. Behind the little man a medical cart awaits. "Doctor, I don't mean to bother you, and I wouldn't if it weren't a pressing matter…"

Watson has been about to greet the man effusively. He needs a moment to realise the truth. Lestrade is bowing to convention. Watson is, if temporarily, a different person as long as he is the locum for Dr. Peters. In Peters' absence, he is as good as Peters and deserves the same level of respect among the working class.

Dr. Peters would have turned Lestrade away.

"Not at all, Inspector." Watson clears his throat. Behind him the valet is coughing discreetly, showing his horror in tiny ways that burrows under the doctor's skin. "How may I be of service?"

"One of the lads, Doctor. PC Swepston…He was helping us get a family out of a mess…" By the looks of the strange frozen-mud stains on the little man's coat, he had been getting them out of the "mess" too… "…and…well, he got himself hurt. The clinic is full…" Lestrade breathes through his nose, both lost and baffled. "We got the family all to the shelter…what was left of them…He was injured in the line of duty; the Yard can pay. _But we can't find anyone!_ The shelters are full; the hospital beds are stacked up in the hallways and there's a chance the boy might have something other people could catch…Mr. Holmes said you might have a spot in your schedule…"

Watson swallows hard. "Not at all, Inspector." He sets his back to the valet. "It just so happens that I am free for the moment." Lestrade still does not look assured. "Would your man prefer to be seen here, or in some place more comfortable?"

Lestrade catches on with relief. "There's a pub just two streets down…they let us rent out the back room behind the kitchen. It's been a quarantine before…if you could see to his arm there…it's quite warm and perhaps you could help me get him to eat."

"Then by all means." Watson turns and reaches for his coat. "I shall be going now, Meyers." The authority rings from his military days, and the valet metamorphoses into something respectful. He steps into the hall for his hat and stick. "I shall see to my public duty elsewhere, since it is so close to the end of the day."

"Very good, sir." Meyers agrees, and his countenance is new and musing and quite respectful indeed.

-

"So Holmes told you I was here?"

Lestrade was almost asleep at the question. He jerked awake; they were smashed into the side of the police-cart, PC Swepston dozing under a thick layer of coats and blankets. Neither of them smelled very sweet; even frozen culvert-water can carry unpleasantness to the nose. He's amazed and almost appalled that Watson can pretend nothing is wrong about them.

"Yes…yes, doctor. We went to Baker Street first…seeing as how you've been Swepston's man in the past and he said you knew about this bum arm."

"I've had to set it before. I hope he gets out of this habit of breaking it."

"You and me both. We can't spare a good man." Lestrade didn't mean to be gloomy, but it seems to affect Dr. Watson that way. "Thank you for seeing to him. We wouldn't have pestered you if there had been another way." The young man stared out the small glass window at the fresh snow casting against their faces. "Doctor?"

"Eh? Not at all, Lestrade." Watson shook himself all over. "Not at all, Inspector." He looked at Swepston, then at Lestrade, and damned if Lestrade could figure what _that_ look is supposed to mean. "As you said, a good man can't be spared." He frowned suddenly. "Lestrade, Holmes is out of town for another fortnight! How did he tell you where I was?"

Lestrade blinked puzzlement. "He told us before he left, Doctor."

"He did."

"Yes…"

"Clever, Holmes."

Lestrade knew that, of course. But he'd never used that sort of voice when saying those words.

Watson looked at Lestrade full in the face, and a slow smile crept beneath his trimmed moustache. "Would I be remiss in believing you have a story to tell me about your day, Inspector?"

"Depends." Lestrade swallowed. "How far does it go?"

"As far as you like."

Lestrade smiles. "You're in for a story then. After you see to my lad first."

"Of course."

1 Pants were the under-layer.

2 Coke up: Poorer people used coke, purchased from furnaces. This is a cheaper but low-grade method of keeping warm.


	16. Gazing Ball

_I haven't posted here in a long time...sorry for that...I suppose I was waiting for the right meme to jump up and clobber me...this is the first of three parts, and is a shameless excuse for me to play with folklore._

_OOOOO_

**Gazing Ball**

_OOOOO_

Watson's fate led to London because he had the express intention of re-making his life from the burnt ash of his own history.

With this eyes-front approach to an open yet dubious future he had not wasted time on what he expected to see in that great city.

London had what he wanted…what he needed. It was large and it teemed and it was almost _virulent_ in its personality. It was not the expected refuge of a man who, while he had managed to step out of his grave, still cast his shadow into that foreboding last rest.

The young, wasted soldier shrunken within his dismissal suit could not bear the thought of returning to his quieter origins. Home threatened him with its promise of peace.

Watson did not want peace. He craved something else…something he did not completely understand but the monotonous flow of the _Orontes'_ prow through the stone-grey ocean gave the sick veteran peace as he huddled in the salt air.

He was weak; he was weak physically and weak in his soul to be so casually examined by the Medical Board and sent on his way, a spoilt chess-man on England's board. Never in his life had he ever been labeled a waste of resource. He had always been strong. He had been capable. He had survived the epidemics and fevers and accidents that ended so many, many lives alongside his own. He had walked unscathed through his fortunes until this terrible turn. It was as cruel as a child discovering they were winning games because their dice was unwittingly loaded.

Watson had taken pride in helping others…in being able to help others…and he had not known how much he needed to be needed.

Pride ended with the taste of ash upon the tongue.

In his lowest moments within the hot, enclosed air of his dark cabin he wondered of the whereabouts of his brother. Did he feel this loneliness as completely as himself? What would their family have said, had they lived to see these days? His mind was restless but without direction and chafed at his physical imprisonment. In the slim night hours it conjured terrible images for his perusal, exploring all possibilities in the future.

Wrapped within a darkness as primeval as his thoughts, his eyes sank upon the faintest gleam of light with the eagerness of a dying man. The troop ship was from an older time, and small, and much of the interior was wood instead of British iron. Here and there thick inverted pyramids of pale green glass were set into the plank where ceiling merged to the sunnier decks; the thicker top absorbed illumination from all angles, even that of the lamps, and threw copies of this light down to the murky depths where discharged and ill soldiers brooded and fumed and pined to be promoted into a clean, hale future were all was sound in body and mind.

Upon that slim but steady green light his starved eyes watched and waited as the _Orontes_ moved on. Old and plodding, it crossed the salt-highway with the easy and patient power of a charger through a field of barley. She left salty lace in her wake that sparkled in the night in a tiny mirror of the sea-foam that tracked above their heads in a black celestial sea. The moon swam through this sea, pale and still and as serene as a silver gazing-ball. On the nights he could bear the open air without trembling, he huddled deep within pilfered blankets and stared hungrily at both silver walk-ways. His life, now rendered into a single, small moment like so much melted tallow, hung suspended between four worlds—two literal, two symbolic.

He existed without much thought of the future—for who knew? The moon was a gazing ball, not the Gipsy's crystal.

Watson thought instead of his past, for these moments were important to his slow-recovering sense of self.. His mind remembered the taste of the tiny blue huckleberries upon the slopes. The sloeberries rendered to gin by the old men. The glass-like glint of the sun against the coverlet of the sea before it ruffled its smooth surface to slow-rising walls topped with lace, crashing with foam against the heavy rocks. There the ocean had been pure agate; translucent pewter shades banded with layers upon layers of milky white. He remembered ancient stone dwellings, still inhabited, not a day's walk from modern glass and wood and brick. There had been small arrow-points and cold springs, and fields of green where a boy might nip a crumb of grey salt off the block on a hot day. He remembered a boyhood well spent poking among Hadrian's Wall in search of the medicinals planted by the Roman physicians. He remembered the chalk streams trickling over trout and how a trip to the Pang meant more than a jaunt to the largest of cities.

And yet, mixed in with those impressions were the memories of the hot land down under, of crocodiles and stiff-voiced matrons with lace hiding their origins or perhaps shielding them from the rest of the world, their Bibles standing as shields and their disapproval no weak weapon.

Australia had been the reason for his shipping with the Fusiliers at first; one hot land was like another to the table-general, and he had enjoyed his too-brief journey into the subcontinent. Above all he remembered the wet of the mangroves, and the tigers, and the endless stalls of games and risk and spice and foods as wonderful as they were indescribable. Women and men alike had sold wares of the world, their clothing brightly coloured with unimaginable tints that represented a sensual love of life itself; he remembered how they all wore tiny mirrors here and there, even sewn into their clothing to repell the intentions of any evil spirit.

_Spices._

_What makes India?_

_Her spices or her people?_

Wasn't there more to that scrap of Indian poem? It would seem as though there were, but he could not quite conjure it, and all attempts led down confused trails until they met into some gruesome recollections: a fresh-killed man-eater hanging from a pole, its rotted-out teeth dripping with blood. Entire families who smelt of turmeric. Children slicing mangoes so green they tasted as though they could draw blood from the tongue, sprinkling the meat of the unripe fruit in salt and chili pepper as though such were the most decadent of sweets. A friend who died of fever just before he shipped to Afghanistan. A friend who smiled every day and would have married all of India were it only possible. He hadn't minded dying in India…he had sworn never to return home.

Watson had loved India too. He thought he might appreciate it the more if he could only remember more of it.

The fever had burnt more than his health away. He knew it had burnt away some of his mind. A fever past one hundred and three degrees is never healthy for the brain's stores. His fever had climbed far past that mark. Had they only been able to keep water within him, he might have survived in a better state. But no…

It was knowing this more than anything that compelled his steps to face-forward into a new future. A new future in a strange, savage land like London required less strength than returning home broken, weak, insipid and amnesiac on common details of his past.

Watson did not have strength to spare. London he felt he could survive. He could _not_ survive one moment of censorial pity from his home. It was better to be friendless than to seek out friends in his spiritual penury.

Nights melted into days. The sun lost its savage ardour until its glow dimmed and felt little more than the soft print of the slow-swelling moon upon his cheek. One time had stars; the other had sweeping flocks of chanting gulls or strange birds that made their homes of the emptiest ocean tract.

He had been branded by the sun, and it did occur to his self-circling thoughts that the passage of the moon was soothing to his battered mind. Better to shiver on the top than remain in the choking closeness of his fellow soldiers. They thrashed through the darkness, marking time in mutters and pleas and unintelligible queries. If he did the same thing in his rare slumbers, he did not know. He could not know, but he suspected there was a reason for why he awoke after a full night's sleep as weary as ever. Before the ship was halfway to England he was persuading the sympathetic crew and a like-minded medical aid that his condition improved where he was: on a narrow lawn-chair with a view to the edge of the world.

The salty sweat of the hold reminded him too much of the smell of salt blood in war. On top the salt-breeze was merely ancient and soothingly implacable. He wanted to be small and perhaps ignorant—at least for a time. Until he healed. Until he regained his sense of self.

They permitted him his needs. They accepted it. He was a light burden indeed once they were convinced he was in no danger of sleep-walking or thrashing his way off the rail.

"Where is the Moon King?" An orderly asked before seeing him in the dark. "Ah." And he took Watson's stillness for sleep, and let him be.

Watson took no umbrage in his new nickname. Literally.

_Umbrage_. An old word pertaining to _shadow_ or _shade_, based on the older Sanskrit for _blind_ and _dark_. The meaning had melted to the _suspicion of being slighted_; umbrage was a word with many definitions and all were subtle gradations against the others.

_Umbrage. A shadow or a ghost._

_The shadow cast by the earth or moon during an eclipse._

_An uninvited guest accompanying an invited one._

He was all of these things in some form. He could not fault the crew for calling him the Moon King. It fit him better than his own gloves. The notion of being compared to King Leopold II was poetically succinct.

Because one thought led to another in the darkness, he wondered if the Bavarian King was fulfilling his reputation under the same moon he sailed under. The young ruler lived in a fairy tale of his own device. Watson daydreamed of the pleasant images the newspapers and gossips and visitors related: The long open-air balls, sleigh rides, concerts and lawns about his palaces gleamed with the reflected glow of silvery gazing balls and artificial grottoes lit by electric lights. Because of this artistic, moody young ruler there was no thought of having a night-party without the use of gazing balls to imitate the moon. Ludwig II called himself the Moon King because he felt himself a shadow of the Sun King he admired.

Watson studied the only gazing-ball permitted him, miles above his head in the night. Cobweb-thin curtains of cloud wisped like the thinnest of gauze. He was an _adumbration_; a sketch in shadow. He was in _dudgeon_; overshadowed. He was _somber_; he was shades of _umber_ between his hair and skin and eyes.

He thought that he was moving from a world where umbrellas shielded from the sun, into a place where they shielded from the rain. He smiled. And he wondered for the first time in many long weeks what would happen.


	17. Unspoken Water

UNSPOKEN WATER

The old mare was so elderly that the Constable was astonished she could still trot about so spry, and when he found her he felt as though they were both trapped in the uniforms of their professions: He as a leather-chinned PC with his brimmed helmet and wool coat on his way home for his fortnight rest; she with her lace cap that spoke of hours' hand-tatting by a canal woman. He soothed her best as she could as she trembled in her large bones, and he wondered what would compel an elderly draught-horse into wandering the streets of London. Eventually it dawned upon him that she was not completely as old as she appeared. The long lash-scars created a false impression of years and some mixed plough-blood gave her the look of being fatter than the truly was. A lady in coarse clothing, the whole bit had him puzzled.

She had dignity despite her lack of sight from the lace cap, and she stood fearfully on the half-rotten cobbles as he wound his rattle and snapped at the hooting urchins to get back. The little boys fell back with hurt expressions, and the adults trying to slide up to her—he knew knackers when he saw their shifty look—retreated. He could spare no more than a glare as he grabbed the odd leather bit around her tender muzzle and drew her to the side of the road. Her scarred flanks shuddered at his guidance, and he again noted the age of those scars in his relief. Her heyday had been brutal, but someone was taking care of her now. Or were.

The nag _was _terribly scarred. She shook when she heard the shouts of the cab-drivers, and she shuddered when his touch grew too near to the old lashes upon her blue-black hide. He was sorry for her the moment his eyes laid upon her bewildered big form in the street.

He was tired and footsore, coming home after a two-week term and facing a precious day off on the morn. And now she was his responsibility.

Lestrade could conceivably have passed the mess to Inspector Davids. It was what a Constable was supposed to do if they were to expect a rise from the beat to plainclothes. Besides being a little too tired to show initiative he was foot-sore in his ill-fitting crabshells, and even in an April skiff of snow his wool uniform was overly warm. He was even sweating against the wind and shamefully overdressed against the shouting street Arabs running barefoot down the older cobblestones. He was both relieved and disappointed to see the children had forgotten them so swiftly. No doubt they were thinking of money to be had at the waterways.

Things had gotten…interesting…for crime since the American States declared war against each other. Daily the young policeman wondered if the PM had the urge to make both sides sit in a corner until they were ready to talk again; the other part of him wished devoutly so many of the Colonials hadn't been English. It gave them the idea they could get financial support for both sides at the same time.

It was a great deal like watching two children in a quarrel and they demanding the mother settle it when _everyone_ knew a mother couldn't take sides. In the meantime, the police, private citizens, and private citizens under contract were dealing with countless strange and not-fully legal tradings.

Strange doings was often a sign that something fishy was going on. A lost canal horse might not be part of it…but it was a good way to start thinking.

He left her at the stables kept for the ambulances and the battered Black Marias as he filed his report. The coal-black gelding favoured by the Beak pricked his ears up at his arrival. It liked him; he didn't know why. Most animals liked him and he didn't know why to that either. He stopped and stroked its neck a few times, talking until it was satisfied at the quality of its visit. The errand boy grinned at him, but looked at the horse fondly. He gave the great neck a final pat and went to the old lady in the corner. Snow blew in from the open window; a welcome change from the stifling heat of the badly-circulated stables. Stables weren't meant to be in cities; buildings blocked the air.

The nag rested under his hands, her greater warmth melting a timid flow of snow upon her skin. He was drawn again to the terrible marks on her neck and back. A thin line ran across her muzzle where something had recently been kept. A nose tin, he decided. Most people couldn't afford real nosebags, so they fashioned them out of large tin lard pails. A canal horse needed it to keep from pausing to graze at everything that caught her eye.

She was beaten, she was worn down, but she had trust in humans. She was sticking to him like glue now that he'd taken her little harriers away. When she shifted her weight he could see her iron shoes had worn thin with use. She was overdue for the farrier.

He took a deep breath. He held it in for a moment. On the other side of the lace curtain those large, liquid brown eyes looked back.

"Oh, very well." He grutched. "You win."

_OOOOO_

Cooper found out, naturally. He had a knack for knowing all sorts of things about his closest friend; positively gifted when you came down to it. He showed up in the little dining-hall the lowly PCs used—the food was so cheap even they could afford it…and they could even get it down if they didn't think too hard about where it all came from.

Most men would try not to think about where it all came from. Lestrade was devoutly no exception.

"What is it today, Lamps?" Pacer Cooper's face was flushed red as a sour pie-cherry as he swung up his helmet by the straps to throw it—thud—upon the thick plank table. "Saw you out at the shift's end and now you're back? We heard you're going to sign up with Bradstreet to join the Runners! I can't see you as a Redbreast," he added with a critical sky-blue eye. "Not if you're going to eat slink and broxy1 pie."

"This is not slink and broxy." Lestrade managed to swallow first before answering—an admirable achievement. Pepper and chopped parsnip wasn't going to cure what was wrong with this sort of pie.

"Are you certain?" Cooper slid into place on the other side; he poked the thin tin plate with a forefinger. "Seems to me I had to arrest that chunk of sheep just the other day. One of Bradstreet's friends caught it loitering in Hyde Park."

Bradstreet, tall, blocky and stoic as Hadrian, never blinked as he brought his gloved fist upon the crown of Cooper's head.

"Here, here, now!" Cooper complained with a grin. "You can't choose your friends now, can you?"

Lestrade smiled slightly as the two bantered. He was out of place in this game. He didn't really know Bradstreet; he knew Cooper from their double-shifts on the East End. They had grown close, but Cooper had made it easy. He was a laughing, patient, reliable, sturdy friend. Anyone would be proud to make his acquaintance. He had seen something worth friendship in Lestrade, and Lestrade was determined to never let him down.

He didn't know Bradstreet so well. Sometimes Lestrade _thought_ he knew him, and sometimes he didn't. The man didn't talk much and saved his enthusiasm for the chance of working for the Runners.

There were a few times when Lestrade had the queer sensation that he and Bradstreet were both on the outside of Cooper's friendship, looking in.

"Roger, tell him not to eat this rot." Cooper was saying. "You know he's putting his life in his own hands."

Roger grunted, deep in his throat. "It's a free land."

_Did he just make a joke?_ Lestrade doubted his initial reaction. The man was so serious and stiff-looking—all the more ridiculous from his smooth, soft face.

"He's better off eating Glouster cheese." Cooper complained. "Red lead and all!"

"Oh, come on!" Lestrade protested. "As if I'd even look at that after the last batch of food poisoning."2

"You take your life into your hands whenever you eat in London." Cooper offered this wisdom flatly, spinning his helmet in his finger-tips like a top. "Remember all those meat-shops we raided? Go on; one hundred shops for the bluebottles. How many of those shops were selling meat from poor dumb beasts dead of pleurisy?"

"At least twenty." Lestrade admitted with terrible reluctance.

"At least twenty. That's one-bloody-fifth. Contract your meals, old fellow."

"When I have the time, I'll think about it." Lestrade pushed the tin dish away. He was finished—wild horses couldn't force him to leave a meal untouched. Unless they were looking for their missing relative on his plate. "I've got other things to do in a bit."

"Finding a home for your new friend?" Cooper teased. "She's a beauty, Lestrade."

Bradstreet smiled slightly from behind Cooper's shoulder. The look said to Lestrade: _"What can you do with the lad?"_ Lestrade himself wondered that question a great deal. "Had the look of a good old nag," the big man offered. "Did you find anything?"

"Not much. She was overdue for new shoes, and her tow-rope had snapped under pressure."

"Those things are always snapping." Bradstreet complained. "They're just cotton and they rub on everything. I don't see how the canal-men can keep paying for new rope."

"They don't, not really." Lestrade told him. "They make'em last as long as they know how."

"A shame." Bradstreet was willing to talk if it meant something interesting. "They're good people for the most part. Keep to themselves. Not like us."

Lestrade pondered the fact that Bradstreet said this in a large room, a good twenty-by fifty feet, and all two-and-twenty-diners at the long tables were eating alone. He wondered if he was beginning to get a feel for Bradstreet's sense of whimsy.

_OOOOO_

Night at London could easily disorient the unwary. Fogs crept and swirled about the streets and alleys as easily as aerial clouds mixed beneath the stars. Lestrade felt the earth-bound constellations signified a greater threat than the cold laws of God, for too much of his work was involved in crimes beneath these lamps.

Yellow gaslights glowed behind tenant windows—rows of squarish and silent golden eyes. Lestrade didn't mind walking alone, and like any sensible copper he celebrated his end of the day cautiously. With his stride long to save strength, the man quietly moved under a wavering line of street-lanterns. The white of the common globes were poor excuses for the moon but at least there were more of them. The blue of the other station-lamps reminded him that policemen were spaced thinly throughout the city, but at least they were spaced evenly. Lastly, the red of the surgeon's lamp. He'd never cared for that color.

The key set into his lock with a snick and he pressed the door open with the side of his hand. The room was frankly awful. It had been much more awful when he first accepted Mrs. Collins' offer of low rent in trade for an eye to the suspicious tenants above his head. A lad fresh from the open air of Plymouth's green estates didn't relate well to the ancient stone basement but it was a place to sleep.

A solid week of cleaning and repairwork had made it tolerable. He paid for his own light in the form of oil lamps and he kept his clothing hung by the terrifically primeval fireplace set into the wall. Lestrade suspected this fireplace had witnessed the Great Fire of London. It was his only source of heat but at least it kept the pernicious odour of the damp out of his uniform.

Low coals glowed fitfully in the bottom of the scooped-out firepit. He discarded his footwear hastily and dried his damp skin before rinsing the soot off in the washstand. He ought to have spent this day off resting, but once he placed his head on the pillow his eyes snapped awake. They stared up in the darkness to the invisible white-washed planks and struts of the ceiling that separated him from the noisier neighbors.

_OOOOO_

"Pitiful, isn't it."

Lestrade turned his head slightly, head heavy in the helmet. He was half-surprised to see Bradstreet behind him, but only half. The big man was contemplating the nag under his currycomb, and shrewd brown eyes said nothing about how his compatriot lingered over her scarred flanks.

"She's had a needlessly hard life." Lestrade said without thinking.

Bradstreet slogged forward in the softening mud, hands still behind his back. His back was erect—you couldn't wear the blue without the sheer weight of wool and your things forcing your back straight. The horse shook slightly but soon both men were gently rubbing her down.

"Needlessly." Bradstreet agreed. "A lady so tame and meek, why the whip? Because someone could I suppose."

It was too sad a story, and too senseless. "Men can be fools, damaging one's livelihood like this."

"I'd say she was bought from such a person to be a canal horse." Bradstreet used one hand to brush at his chin. "Thought this was your fortnight," he changed the subject.

"It is. She should have been reported missing. So if she hasn't, what's the problem?"

Bradstreet nodded to show his understanding. The canal-folk were wary of outsiders, but tight-knit as worsted with each other. Word of a missing horse would have gotten out. "I found something on my beat," he offered. "Thought you might want to look at it."

Lestrade tilted his head curiously. "Go on." He prompted.

Bradstreet pulled a tin lard-pail out of his carry-sack. It was cleaned to a shine and painted up in a very familiar pattern. The lingering bits of cord that held the tin to the horse's nose still hung off the edges.

Lestrade took the tin and sniffed; the hay-sweet scent of oats still lingered in the bottom. "Where'd you find this, and before the scamps could find it first?"

Bradstreet answered just a breath before Lestrade realised it for himself.

"Over at the Bridge of Unspoken Water."

It was the one place in London where one could guarantee no one, not even the hard-ups, would linger for mischief or profit.

"Fancy a walk back over?"

_OOOOO_

They walked together in silence, the horse stepping delicately between them as the street melted from cobbles and brick to the slow slope of the Regent's Canal. On occasion Bradstreet startled a laugh out of his companion, sharing some poignant note about the world about them.

In turn, Lestrade opened up a bit out of his usual reserve. Bradstreet hadn't expected him to get lively, for the silence he wore had the solidity of a hand-carved mask. But Lestrade had an absent-minded affinity for water and it showed in his unthinking assumption that Bradstreet knew the difference between cuts and streams.

"No, that's where the stream runs into the canal." He corrected into a discussion on a part of the Kensington Canal. "When it runs into a canal, they call it a cut or a canal. It stops being a stream."

"It's still stream water. How so this?" Bradstreet queried.

Lestrade shrugged not unlike the horse he was guiding. "Because God made the streams, and man made the cuts. Cut the earth, so to speak, to make the canals." He smiled as if to himself. "They can be stern to those who don't know."

"I'll remember that."

"Fancy a bit?" Lestrade asked halfway to the Bridge.

"Just might."

Here the water was as brown as the Thames, slow and placid. Bits of emerging greenery relieved the eye after the months of ice. The canal-folk were in full emergence and the men watched the strange, silent craft floating along the current with their cargoes. Horses like the one under their grip pulled the boats up, guided by a young boy while the boat itself avoided the rough damage of the banks through the steersman up front. Compared to the usual dullness of the city, a painted narrowboat was as bright as the Crown Jewels. Frequently washed, the boats were exactly inside the width of the smaller canals and piled high with whatever goods for transport. The nag was eager to be back under the smell of the water; her ears flickered and she peered through her lace cap for her own boat.

"Dear me." Lestrade marveled. Bradstreet followed his eye to where a spectacularly-decorated narrowboat was just passing beneath a slender bridge. The horse on the tow-path twitched his large tail just as the guiding boy bellowed a warning; the withered up old steersman pulled a cord and the small chimney on top collapsed forward, making room for the craft to pass through without harm.

Bradstreet saw Lestrade's purpose. Along the decorated waterline of damask roses and triangular leaves rested the name of the boat. **_"The Tipsy Parson?"_** He wondered.

"Quite a name." Lestrade opined. "Not the usual sort of name for a narrowboat, is it?"

They paused at a purlman's stall—a common sight along any stretch of water although Bradstreet thought there were fewer every year. The canal-folk were a bit old-fashioned in things and they catered to the same crowd. To those who (for reasons unknown) eschewed tea, the morning purl remained the usual English restorative, unchanged in its most important ingredients for over a century and a half.

Lestrade said nothing until they were safely away with their packets of paper-wrapped meats, but Bradstreet had seen how his nose had wrinkled at the fume coming off the boil. Hot beer was stern stuff, but when it was mixed with gin, sugar, and enormous amounts of ginger, it could be rather sterner.

"Can't imagine there was a time before tea." Bradstreet commented at last.

Lestrade grunted faintly. "Tea's got to be better for you…at least there're fewer things in it to go bad, eh?"

"Save the re-used leaves and street sweepings and dyed sawdust."

Lestrade laughed again. He had said nothing to Bradstreet's choice of vendors. Many policemen, particularly the ones with any Highlander blood, avoided the meat of pigs. Sometimes they took teasing for the custom but you might as well expect a northerner to go set a place at the table for a nest of spiders than tolerate pork.

"Any notion why there's no word to the Yard over a missing horse?" Bradstreet wondered.

"I can't say. It's queer." Lestrade gnawed over his portion in silence before speaking again. "Come to think of it…I can't tell you the last time there wasn't a narrowboat under the Bridge."

"I'd thought the water-gipsies had a choke-hold on the business."

"I'd thought the same." Lestrade toed a loose rock away from the path of the thin-soled nag. With her own feed-tin back about her nose (full of grain) she was content to be led.

"So you think you know the owner of the horse?" Bradstreet said to pull his mind out of his thoughts.

"I think I know the painter for her tin." Lestrade gently reached up, indicating the gay decorations. The horse flinched even though he hadn't come close to her face. "I've seen it before."

The canal folk had their own way of decorating things, and it was the truth. Clouds, castles and roses weren't the half of it; they were also fond of diamonds, circles, strangely-shaped flowers and other peculiar objects that at least livened up the surroundings. But this nose-tin held was a borderline of designs that made him think of playing-card shapes. In soft yellow. Playing cards came in blacks and reds, so he couldn't help but noticed there was a yellow of spades.

"The boat-people stick to their own styles," Lestrade said slowly. "After a bit of practice you can see the differences. I just can't remember where I've seen this style before, but it was along this cut, and I'm certain it was that narrowboat what moors under the Bridge."

_OOOOO_

They lucked into a narrowboat just above the Bridge. This was a scrubbed down, coal black and sleek new craft. Red diamonds marked the sides alongside blue violets with improbable vines instead of leaves. Lestrade hallooed and a boy perched on the roof working on the collapsible chimney hallooed back. They saw him bend his head and chatter to the roof under his legs. A thump rumbled and a door too small for Bradstreet's bulk kicked open.

"Begging your pardon!" Bradstreet bellowed. "But we're looking for this little lady's home!"

The boat-man took a single hop, clearing his stride from boat to bank without a breath; it was his audience what breathed, expecting him to fall into the water.

"Old Maisey's Nag." The man announced without hesitation. "Where she be? She'd lost on t'Sabaath."

Lestrade and Bradstreet resisted the urge to glance at each other. Sunday had been a full three days ago—time enough to report a crime.

Bradstreet took up the opening. "Did anyone report her missing?"

The boatman shrugged as if these things were beyond him. "She won't be saying much," he said at last. "Sickness in t'throat." He mimed something, like a large goiter over his Adam's apple. "She waitin' for th' little ones to come back t'take over."

"If you'd tell us where we could find her, we'd be glad to bring her horse back."

The man chewed on his bottom lip a moment before nodding his head further downstream. "No horse, she moored up at t' fields."

"Thank you."

Bradstreet waited until they were a good hundred steps down the cut before talking. "Mind telling me what that was about?"

"Not yet." Lestrade said softly. "Wait 'till we're full out of sight."

Bradstreet did his best, but he couldn't see anyone around other than the birds in the hedgerows. "As you say."

"Old Maisey's known by a few other names besides the one we just heard." Lestrade's dark eyes were grim and set as his mouth. "We're in for some mischief, Bradstreet."

Bradstreet pondered this in silence as his smaller companion kept to the side of the bank where the packed stone allowed the horse passage without slipping. Once or twice a few children ran past. They were too clean to be of the mill so Bradstreet reckoned they were part of the canal-folk. A string of coarse-fleshed fish gleamed on the end of a string spread between two of the tallest boys. Someone would be celebrating with a fry at the end of the evening.

Something about the fish—Bradstreet couldn't say, perhaps it was the dead way the carps' eyes bulged—sent a thrill through his breast. "Old Maisey," he blurted. "Isn't that the polite name for Old Three Eyes?"

"Yes. And if she's left her usual perch under the Bridge, then I hesitate to think of what's going on upon the canals."

Bradstreet didn't blame Lestrade for thinking along those tracks. Old Three Eyes would have been burnt as a witch not so very long ago—assuming of course, there had been enough of the King's Horses and King's Men to do the job.

1 The meats for the poorest of the poor—the slaughterhouse rejects. miscarried cattle and diseased sheep.

2 Violent food poisoning and deaths resulted from the use of red lead as a cheese colouring


	18. Tombstone Tears

_OOOOO_

Policemen had a reputation for being superstitious—it wasn't something they actively cultivated. Sadly, it seemed to happen the way mushrooms followed damp earth and lightning. Lestrade hoped he was one of the least susceptible of the lot, but he didn't feel eager to walk to the narrowboat tucked away in a clump of shrubs feeding off the little stream draining from a long, green field. This much greenery meant there was a most expensive bit of private estate so…walk lightly, gents.

Old Three Eyes luckily did not owe her common name to a literal tragedy of birth. What she had was something almost as unsettling as a third eye upon the face: A large lump of spare flesh, just conveniently the size of an eyeball. Somewhere in her youth (and it was anyone's guess how many decades ago), an ink artist had finished the resemblance.

The woman therefore had a third eye in the middle of her forehead (slightly to the left) that never closed, never needed to, and thanks to the fact that most women's brows where lower than most men's…it was often in the direct line of vision with her clients.

Like everyone else, the police had their own theories about the third eye.

"I think she did it for protection." Bradstreet argued for the third time. They could see the tiny slip of the narrowboat's snout poling from the clump of thin-looking reeds. "She was going to be an outcast anyway, so she might as well make the most of it."

Lestrade grunted under his breath. "I still can't fathom it." He complained. "She's a woman. It's always risky to women if they draw attention to themselves. And that sort of attention isn't the good kind!"

"Well she couldn't rely on a husband, could she? Not with a mark like that." Bradstreet was being practical, not cruel. If a policeman had a penny sweet every time they witnessed a crime where the victim "deserved it" because of some physical or mental flaw that set them apart, they'd all be in business for themselves and life would be, well, sweeter.

A woman often could find a husband…if they were willing to lower their prospects in trade for someone who could overlook their flaws. Despite the long odds, many women married fairly well. They had children. And they did this despite missing limbs, or twisted limbs, thin blood disease, blemish, unfortunate family history…there was usually a way.

But a woman who embraced her strange deformity? That would require an unusual man for a helpmeet. A strong man who didn't mind living in the shadow of an infamous wife. Lestrade felt disgust for the situation, because he argued that the woman—or witch—was throwing out the good with the bad and people knew it. She was taken care of among the boat-people, but the concern seemed thin to his outsider's eye.

Her horse was missing. Why hadn't anyone helped her?

_OOOOO_

"Hallo there!" Lestrade cupped his hands over his mouth like a trumpet's bell and called. The narrowboat had no particular way of setting it apart save for the use of yellow paint decorating the spades, diamonds, hearts and clubs of a card-deck.

A shuffle rocked the craft and a dark-clad head emerged from behind the tiny cabin. Bradstreet heard a gasp and the horse whickered loudly.

"There, Julie!"

At the sound of her name, the horse repeated her excitement and stretched forward.

"Thank 'ee for finding her," she said around a canal accent as thick as Lambeth water in high season. "Wouldn't be the same to t'be on t'cut wi'out Julie!" The mark on her forehead was less disturbing with exposure, but it was difficult for the men to accept the fact that someone was taking a mark from God and…flaunting it.

"Not at all, ma'am." Lestrade moved awkwardly within his heavy uniform. There was no "boat" without a "Julie." Something happens to the horse, replace it fast or all hail disaster upon the family. "If I may, why wasn't this reported before?"

A flash of pain crossed the wrinkled old face, before it was replaced by bitterness. "I couldn't leave!" she said slowly as possible, fighting her canal accent to something more like his own way of speech. "I had a client. I had to wait for'm."

"Wait for them?" Lestrade repeated.

The old woman sighed and reached into a waist-tied apron that nearly stretched to the worn deck-boards. She fished out a key and muttered something that sounded like they could come and see if they so liked. Not at all certain, the men followed although Bradstreet nearly had to hold his breath to fit within the confines of the cabin itself.

She shuffled to a spot in the wall, thrust the key within what appeared to be a warped knot-hole, and twisted. A drawer finally wrenched open in a gasp of wood. Lestrade could see that everything had been glossed over with beeswax to within an inch of its life. That was narrowboat furniture for you—sanded down until things barely fit because the damp would make the wood swell, and then seal it all off with varnish and wax—even soap if that was all they had.

Inside the drawer rested twenty compartments, and within each compartment (all equally sized) was a small glass jar. Some of the writing on the lids were discernible to the eye, but not all. And there were some jars that held strange symbols instead of letters at all.

"Here." The old lady pointed to a single empty place within the drawer. "I made a trade, y'see. My unspoken water for his verter-water. Trade to trade. But he's not come. And I must wait for I must have th'pay." A look of open worry made creases of her forehead. "I must have the verter-water."

The men glanced at each other again, clearly uncomfortable with being involved in a case that meant a study of witch-craft and folk-charms. "Who would this person be, Miss Maisey?" Bradstreet asked respectfully.

"Oh. The Brewer." The old woman stopped to cough something into her rag-thin handkerchief. Her wrinkled-up body trembled. "My eyes, they aren't as good as they used to be, but I thought he'd come by today. That was why I've been up top, waiting for him to come by."

"Do you know the name of The Brewer?" Bradstreet tried again.

"The Brewer." Reproach tainted the old woman's voice.

Bradstreet opened his mouth to point out there was a bullishness to the old woman that suggested to the blind that she knew the name in question…but Lestrade gently pressed his hand.

"If we were to bring you some verter-water, Miss Maisey," Lestrade cleared his throat, "Perhaps we could help you with the rest of your matters?"

_OOOOO_

"You're barking mad!" Bradstreet protested when they were well down the canal-path and headed back to town. "What in the world would this verter-water even be and why would she need it as a bargaining tool? Is this going to cost us money, old fellow?"

"Not a cent but in shoe leather." Lestrade lifted his left hand to rub at a growing headache. His right hand still safely clutched the empty glass jar with its zinc lid. "And verter water's easy enough to find this time of year…especially since we had that rain the other day."

"I don't follow you."

"Verter water." Lestrade explained heavily. "It's the water found collected in tomb-stones. Didn't we pass a chapel a few miles past?"

_OOOOO_

That chapel turned out to be a small place, dwarfed by the size of the graveyard built during the Tudor Kings. Bradstreet allowed his eyes to flow over the loose pattern of graying stones, weeping slow black tears as the rain trapped the aerial factory soot against much paler stones.

He wondered how often the little sexton saw these matters, because the fellow never blinked when they explained their purpose and recommended a particular line of stones on the eastern fence.

"Try Old Handscome's plots," he added in afterthought. "He was a generous man in life…stayed generous in death."

Lestrade thanked him for the advice and got his bearings.

"What do you think he meant by that?" Bradstreet wondered.

"The basins are used to hold flowers or little pots…sooooo…" Lestrade ventured to guess. "Perhaps he was the sort who liked the idea of lots of decoration on his stone?"

"That makes sense." Bradstreet offered. "Oh, look." He paused and they stopped at the same time. Stones made of compressed concrete, cheaper than marble, lined up against a row of neatly trimmed-back yews. All had the name HANDSCOMBE and all had some sort of reliquary for flower, pot of herb, or candle. "Generous sort," he agreed under his breath.

"Well, I'm going to see if there's some relatively clean water." Lestrade muttered under his breath and scarpered off to examine the family row. Bradstreet hung back, musing to himself the wide variety of stones. Half had pedestals and stone urns at the bottom; one had the look of a Greekish temple. On the backs of the stones were a long, uninterrupted hedge of yew. Bradstreet was taken back in his memory at the sight. Yews in graveyards had been a common sight in his days before London.

The big man pouted in thought, an action that made dimples of his chin and unfortunately made him inconveniently handsome. A diffident self-view had for the most part left him uneasy in the presence of the Gentler Sex and he was already thinking of how the season was turning to one that was fiendishly sociable.

Lestrade grumbled further in his hearing.

"What is it?"

"There are bits of yew leaves in all these pots."

"Can't imagine who the culprit would be."

"Very witty, Bradstreet." Lestrade snorted. His usual dour expression suddenly twinkled as he admitted to the absurdity of the situation. "I'm not going to put yew-needle tea in this thing."

"Is someone going to drink that potion?" Bradstreet hadn't a single notion as to why one would want this stuff.

"I would hope not. It's supposed to be a charm for warts."

Bradstreet thought about it. "Hmmm…you're right. What if someone had a wart right on their lip?" He frowned as a thought struck him. "Wonder why people keep putting poisonous trees in graveyards?"

"I think it has something to do with the fact that yews can live for a dashed long time." Lestrade noted.

"Well, that makes sense." Bradstreet thought of a yew in Perthshire; supposedly the oldest tree in the world. "Immortality, I suppose…any luck then?"

"Perhaps." Lestrade had unscrewed the lid of the bottle and was using it as a ladle to dip small amounts of the water into the vessel. By looks of things, Bradstreet might be better off taking a rest on one of the wood-plank benches along the edge.

He did so, loosening his helmet and imagining the escaping cloud of steam from the top of his head. That was one thing about the new coppers; it was hard to keep these tin pots on...if there was a chance to stop and breathe, they took that chance. Bradstreet took several deep breaths, wishing he could do something about this stiff leather collar and closed his eyes for a moment. Around him small birds chirruped, scurrying in the tangled underbrush. A few were the bold cock-robins, sparrows and wrens...the three friends of man with the corvae being the fourth and last.

Bradstreet was amused to note that while Lestrade bent over his task, dipping out tombstone tears, the little birds acted as though his actions were perfectly ordinary.

"Now all we have to do is find that wretch who owes her the other half of this trade and get her the rest of her purchase…" His voice still carried deep annoyance over the entire thing. "What a vile thing, Bradstreet. That poor woman's going to be dead by Christmas with her throat. It's plain as paint. Who would fall out on a dying woman's trade?"

"You have me there." Bradstreet sighed. "I suppose that's why no one helped her find her horse. If she had her Julie, she would have nigh killed herself looking for him."

"Ought to be a law," Lestrade said under his chin-strap. He was saying that a lot lately. "There ought to be a law against doing things like that to the elderly, the infirm and both."

Bradstreet pulled off his helmet and relished the feel of the cemetery breeze in his damp hair.

"As you said. Half the job. We find the wretch's shop—wherever it is—and make the trade. Are you certain this is legal?"

"Quite legal so long as we don't ask about this stuff by name," Lestrade grumbled. He had the look of a man who had been asked to muck the elephants'-stalls at the zoological gardens.

"I'll leave that to you." Bradstreet offered cheerfully.

_OOOOO_

They ran into their first piece of genuine, patent-leather luck not five minutes after. A policeman was hurrying their way on the canal-path, and by the cut of his cloth he was Thames Division. Bradstreet always liked those fellows, even though they got more than their share of teasing by the other coppers for the sheer thankless aspects of half their duties.

"Hullo, there, Lamps!" The newcomer lifted his hand. "Who's your friend, hey?"

"Thomas?" Lestrade smiled. "Off work early aren't you?" No need to ask how he knew; a policeman did not act frivolous within the duty-shift, and most of them wouldn't even be this informal. "This is Bradstreet. We're looking for a fellow, calls himself The Brewer."

"Hmn." Thomas puffed up to a stop, his face cherry-red. With a gasp of relief he pulled off his helmet—relieved as he was, a man learned to feel naked and exposed without the helmet, and like Bradstreet put it back on as soon as he could. "What's he been doing now?" He asked darkly.

"Nothing much that we know about." Bradstreet protested. "Other than trying to rook Old Three Eyes out of a trade."

Thomas' brilliant green eyes narrowed into chips of bottle-glass. "Is that so?" He asked through his teeth, the model of a man at the end of his rope—and a hangman was on the other side.

"Er." Lestrade was taken aback. As quickly as possible he explained verbatim the roots of their conversation. While a copper could be accused of owning a plodding tongue, their trained memory was a handy thing. Through it all Thomas looked progressively gloomier. When Lestrade finished, the man's chin hung well below the comfortable line of his chin strap.

"Swine." Thomas said at last. "That rotten swine. I'll bet he's the one who set Julie loose to trot about the knackers! I've had it up to my warrant card with that one." He changed to a weary sigh. "I'd bank on that man as fast as I'd bank on a square shilling." With the resigned air of a man who has called himself back to duty, he re-fixed his chin strap. "Come on, then. I'll tell you all about it. Keep your eyes out. We're looking for _The Tipsy Parson."_

"We passed them going up the cut not three-quarters of an hour ago." Bradstreet said.

"Then it shouldn't take too long…he'll stop and sell some of his wares along the way. You just see."

"What sort of wares would that be?"

"If we're not lucky? Possets and charms, cheap jewelry…little things people put on little shelves on the walls."

Bradstreet and Lestrade both knew the canal folk did not make decent wages on selling that sort of thing. "What if we're lucky?" Lestrade wondered.

"Then we find out what it is that stuffed shirt really likes to sell." Thomas set his mouth. "I'm willing to call this enough of an excuse to take a look in his cabin. Never been able to before, but…" The smile grew to sharkish lines. "Could be my lucky day." He offered cheerfully.

"What's this between himself and Old Three Eyes?" Bradstreet wondered.

"Lord bless us, where to start?" Thomas sighed like a punctured bagpipe. He kicked a cobble into the canal with the toe of his crabshell, never missing a beat. "Where do you want me to start the story, gentlemen? Before or after the marriage?"

Lestrade had been in the process of lifting his tea-can to his lips. Hard practice kept him from spilling it all over the place. "Which marriage? Whose?" He strangled.

"Miss Maisie's got a niece—and a right lovely one too, let me say. Nearest of kin. Got her auntie's backbone and not a few of her brains between her ears. And she's prettier than any lady you'd see on stage. You know it would take a strong man to set his cap for a girl like that." The three men nodded knowingly to each other. A beautiful girl was frightful enough. A very beautiful girl was an unattainable standard. A very beautiful girl who was the niece of a practice witch? Most stories would end there.

"Anyway, The Brewer was wanting to get his hands on Old Three Eyes' narrowboat. Tis a good, clean boat, she keeps it tight as a drum. For a while it looked like he would get it because the neice was trying to make a go of land-living with her young man. Somehow word got to her about her aunt and they decided they would go down and take care of her and put their share into the cargoes. Everyone was happy for it; two more hands in that boat can make the cargo faster, and the faster boat gets the pay. What with the big companies squeezing out the little family boats, everyone's trying harder these days."

"So what happened?" Lestrade wondered. "It seems above the board. Aunt gets help around the boat, doesn't have to sell the boat, and the trade stays in the family."

"The Brewer's what happened." Thomas answered with an ugly look. "The young Missus was on her way down to the boat, going to wait for her man to follow with a contract, when she up and fell, broke her leg. Now there's a doctor to pay…The Brewer offered his price again, but he didn't count on Old Three Eyes to be successful in her particular trade." Thomas cleared his throat. "Y'see, she never really did much of her little…"ways"…out in the open, and just seemed to be doing it as a side business. Now there's a doctor to pay for both of 'em, and she thought she might as well go full-time into her other work. Charms, potions…medicines…she's always had a knack for helping bring the baby into the world. It didn't take long, but she got the money and paid the doctor off and then the Brewer was right red in the face over it because he all but promised that narrowboat to his own creditors."

"Hah. That never works." Bradstreet barked. "What sort of fool is he?"

"He's not a fool, sir. Not a bit of it. What he is is normally careful in his dealings and if he hadn't been convinced the deal was done…he wouldn't have made such a scheme." Thomas sighed and plink, another cobble took a bath in the calm canal. "Things have been happening to _the Sunflower_ since then. Little things, nothing that would up and damage the boat, but its losing money. And those people can't afford to lose much of any."

"_The Sunflower_…I wondered what they called her boat." Lestrade mused. "Must be for the flowers she has painted at the prow. She likes yellow."

"Most people don't. Most people wouldn't have much of yellow about, but that's her trademark and she doesn't know most her letters." Thomas explained. "The niece does the reading and writing for her." Thomas' shoulders drooped, not unlike a large sunflower with a heavy head. "There you are. The Brewer against Old Three Eyes."

"And the Brewer is winning?" Bradstreet guessed.

"Not nearly as fast as he'd like." Thomas mumbled. "He's getting angry. I'd say Julie's escape was all his."

Lestrade tucked his hands behind his back and let the other men walk in front. He wanted to think a little about this problem. Small talk passed back and forth for less than a quarter-mile until Bradstreet came to a stop and pointed with his chin.

"That looks like it." Thomas agreed. He was smiling like a skull and his fingers inched to his truncheon. Lestrade hoped this wasn't a sign of things to come. "Here we are, eh?"

"Before we threaten to arrest this fellow, what name does he officially go by?" Lestrade wanted to know.

"Just Mr. Brewer, and best you not forget the Mister." Thomas grumbled. His fingers twitched over the smooth wood of the truncheon.

_OOOOO_

Normally, a narrowboat has more than one person on board. It is impossible for someone to steer the craft and simultaneously guide the horse pulling the boat along the water. They saw no one perched on the roof to lookout; they saw no one on deck. They saw no one at all, and when the steersman's post was empty Thomas picked up his step and started running, his heavy boots clopping against the battered trod. The others followed, knowing better than to scorn a comrade's instincts.

"Halt!"

His view blocked by larger men, Lestrade barely caught a glimpse of a dark-clad figure running like the proverbial bat out of bedlam from boat to walk and from walk to an overlapping slum. Bradstreet made as if to pursue but Thomas' hand flashed out and caught his arm.

"You'll never catch him. It's a rabbit warren!" Thomas panted. He leaped to the bobbing boat with a thump of shoe-leather against plank. "Good God!" Was his exclamation at the double doorway. "Lestrade, can you get yourself inside this?"

"What?" Lestrade was quite, quite used to being volunteered for small spaces, but his irritation melted when he put his head inside the cabin. Small as it was, the situation was unusual enough for a full-sized man to handle (ten feet long, six feet, six inches across on average for a family narrowboat). Tiny cookstove to the left, surrounded by its hanging pots and pans. No child's bed across from the stove as usual, which meant the Brewer didn't have any young ones to take care of. The adult's bed still rested on the wall, waiting to be pulled down for the night. A table-cupboard fitted between the stove, crockery set up neat and precise against the wall.

It wasn't the only thing set up against the wall.

Lestrade took a deep breath at the still figure wedged in the smallest possible space between stove and wall and a table-cupboard that really ought to have been installed just one inch or two down.

Bradstreet had peered in through the steersman's little window and could see rather more of the dead man's face than Lestrade probably wanted to. "This man prone to the fits?" He wondered uneasily.

"I wouldn't be surprised if his brain burst," Thomas observed darkly. "He only used it for foul thinkings."

Lestrade swallowed and shook his head, pulled off his helmet to make some room, and eased his way into the cabin. A breeze whistled through his sweating hair and he caught the faint heat coming off a rapidly-cooling cookstove. Even for a man of his stature, this was ridiculously small. How did families of four or more even live? He supposed they got along better than his own family…but he quickly stopped thinking of that. "He's wedged in good," he announced over his shoulder. "Looks like a seizure." He devoutly hoped this were the case because a murder would add greatly to complications.

Speaking of complications…the others were waiting for his answer. He took a deep breath. "I might be able to get him out," he offered. "Give me a moment…and I'll try."


	19. Two Yealms of Nonsense

_From the notebook of PC Bradstreet:_

'…_went to The Tipsy Parson to interview narrowboat's owner, a local known as "The Brewer" implicated in malicious acts against a woman of poor means (Narrowboat Cargo-captain known as Old Maisie, Miss Maisie, & Old Three-Eyes). Found TB dead of apparent natural causes. Body was self-wedged into the cranny between corner & shepherd's stove by the force of a fatal seizure. _

' _L trying to extricate the body; too little room for any sort of examination. T called for medical examiner. He assures us the response will be within 1/4-hr—less if the messenger can catch the staff between duty-changes. _

'_Weather has gone against predictions of the newspapers and remains calm and fair. PC Thomas (RP) claims the scent of black river silt is the scent from Lambeth, and that such signs predict the return of rain within two hours…' _

_Plip._

Whatever just dipped itself into the canal, it _probably_ belonged there.

Probably...

PC Bradstreet paused with his pencil over the tiny notebook, mistrustfully eyeing the widening water-rings. The mood beneath his skull was souring with the length of the day. His expensive uniform was getting too tight about the shoulders because of his 20-mile walks. He was increasingly aware that he would have to get another uniform, soon. His clumsy shoes needed new soles. The leather collar made his throat scrape and burn. His chin itched with the new growth coming out; he didn't recall his beard being so active back when he was a simple crofter up in the old family borderlands. He was constantly hungry; his thoughts always turned back to food.

He decided he didn't like narrowboats. They lacked the light, tough grace of his boyhood's flat-bottomed boats and shallow canoes. They were too small and made him feel exposed and cramped at the same time. The conflict just didn't sit right.

Tiny dark insects drifted in the thin puffs of air as they danced over the thick skin of the tea-dark canal water. Something slid beneath their shadows before splitting to atoms. Bradstreet held his breath and spied the long, grayish torpedo of a fat carp swimming to the deepest part of the cut. The sheer size of it made him think of a smoking hot fry with chips. How he missed a good plate of glistening white carp and thin-sliced black potatoes.1

And there it was. Thoughts of food again. It was a wonder he hadn't gone searching for spring greens at the graveyard. There had to have been plenty of bits against the fence...

PC Thomas muttered to himself about the interruption to his hard-worked schedule, and consoled himself with a smoke. Unlike Bradstreet, he had mastered shorthand, and had finished his report on far fewer pages some minutes ago.

Bradstreet studied his new companion politely. Whilst his acquaintance with Lestrade was in its infancy, he had already gotten the idea that the man didn't make friends easily. Thomas was an interesting derailment of an inaccurate observation.

The waterman's work with the liquid streets of the _ton_ proved itself to the canal-awkward Borderman: He stood with absent-minded grace on the _'Parson's_ deck-planks, toes braced in case the narrowboat unexpectedly rocked.

Thomas rolled his cigarette one-handed and muttered again as he fumbled for his matches. Bradstreet produced his (only polite; the man had helped them), and found himself rewarded when Thomas gave him his own just-rolled tobacco.

Thomas considered Bradstreet's expression as he rolled up a second fag. "Prefer dry land?"

Bradstreet could have taken it the wrong way for the sake of his pride, but a lifetime amongst strong personalities had taught him some depreciating craft in humour. It was also plain that Thomas had webbed feet. He chuckled and they bent their heads together to share the same match-tip to their tobacco. It took all four of their hands to shield the tiny flame against the sudden cross-current breezes. "This is _London_. I'll take my land wet, dry, or foggy."

"Lamps said you were a Borderman. Not much water where you were?"

"_Plenty_ of water…locked up in land where it belonged." Bradstreet joked. "No, it's just that the water was either tame little streams or roaring salt-water. Not much of anything in between."

"Ah." Thomas nodded wisely. "Understood. Nothing at all like the civility of the canals."

"Civility? You have the right word. I hadn't thought of it before. But it is all about civility, isn't it?" Bradstreet found the association pleasant for the very sense it made. A canal was _civil_; it was a water-way tame and educated instead of wild and unfettered. It wasn't allowed to flood, and its levels were controlled by laws and locks. The more he thought of it, the more he liked it. Canals made sense, but the waterways of his home were too wild and free. No wonder he'd not been comfortable on these currents.

Looking back in his recollections, the unease with the canals met the same feelings Bradstreet had when he saw someone with a wild animal for a pet. Wild-cats and wolves and tiger cubs didn't make _pets_. They were _trophies_. And people who kept snakes…well who ever thought they could tame a reptile? Water reminded him of snakes. You couldn't tame water. And yet…here they were, digging canals and telling the water where to go. Perhaps they convinced themselves the water was tame, but Bradstreet knew better. Give it the chance, and water would escape. Just like a wild animal.

Thomas was talking. Bradstreet turned his mind from inward to outward:

"Takes time, man." Thomas was advising. "It also takes time for the canals to like you or not. You'll know soon enough. This is just another street to me."

Bradstreet wondered what that meant, to get a canal to 'like' you. It was either superstition or poor wording, which often happened when English had to deal with complex definitions. Bradstreet loved his native language as much as any son, but he couldn't deny the tongue had its limits.

"Getting the dead out of the gutter on _this_ street looks a bit difficult," he said at last.

"Sometimes." Thomas agreed. "'specially when they sink to the bottom and no one knows where the gaff went 'ta." His eyes were wry. "Shall we give Lestrade a hand?"

"I'd give him a chance to settle it out on his own." Bradstreet cautioned. "What a mess. If it was a clear case of murder, we could call for evidence and take a few minutes off."

"Ordinary deaths can be the most difficult. Mebbe we'll know more in a few." Thomas exhaled his weariness along with a blue cloud of smoke. Behind them, the one living occupant of the tiny cabin was swearing.

...

Inside the cabin, Lestrade stopped to take a deep breath. In the confines it felt too warm, but the _stove_ didn't feel warm enough. He scowled and wriggled over the body to place his hand upon the flat sheets of welded iron. Warm, yes—but fast cooling, like the unfortunate remains beneath him. Creosote dripped ugly black gritty tears down a flaw in the black iron pipe-fittings—sloppy work and not proper. A canalman would have pride in his home, and he wouldn't have tolerated anything like that…Lestrade frowned at a sudden thought.

"What're you doing?" Thomas asked from the other side of the tiny doorway.

"Trying to—_umph_—" Lestrade grunted and began banging on the metal stove-door. "Open the door on this bloody—stove…"

_Clunk_. Without warning the whole thing yawed open, swing apart with enough force to smack his wrist against the wall. Lestrade swore. Loudly.

...

Outside the cabin, PC Bradstreet sourly re-contemplated the fact that they were in a potential homicide _while off duty_. He buried his dissatisfaction in a quick bit of bread tucked in his uniform and watched through the tiny window as Lestrade worked (somehow) to prize the corpse free from its death-spot. The body was wedged tight as clay in the corner of a too-tiny boat.

More swearing—and the most impressive yet.

Thomas was impressed. "You'll turn the tatties black with that talk!"

"Hmph." Was Lestrade's riposte. "It's the bloody stove."

"What _about_ the bloody stove?" Bradstreet poked his big head inside, nearly chipping his helmet-rim against the edge of the door, and Lestrade grunted, leveraging the little stove-hatch open to show his mate.

"Well, what do you know." Bradstreet rubbed at his stubbling chin.

"_What?"_ Thomas craned to see.

"The stove's full of coke ash. More'n half full. That stove was stocked up hours ago, but for some reason, _no one opened the stove to rake the ash out_."

Thomas blinked. Not tending a fire made as little sense as walking under a rain-cloud without a hat. The ash would slow-smother the glowing coals, forcing the heat and oxygen down to a bare minimum of chemistry. The room would have been tolerable, but not comfortable. Only the sealed-shut windows and door would have kept the warmth in well enough to make it hot. "Makes you wonder just how long he's been dead."

Lestrade did not have an easy time of it. A policeman had to be stronger than average just to move in their uniform, but leverage was a problem. Bradstreet and Thomas watched as best as they could as their comrade gave up, stomped out of the cabin, and grimly pulled off his bulky coat and helmet. Folding it neatly over the rail he went back inside for another try. Success met their ears: furniture grunted across the waxed wood of the floor.

"Got him." Lestrade panted some minutes later. "It's a burst blood-vessel for certain, so we can go ahead and move him out."

"You look close to a burst vessel yourself." Bradstreet commented mildly. "Shouldn't you sit down a moment and cool off?"

"I might as well…it isn't like I'm on duty." Lestrade muttered. "What's that smell?"

"What smell? I don't smell a thing. Hmph. I'm almost disappointed." Thomas grumbled. "The last time something like this happened, I had to ask the family to get the deceased out."

"Were you hoping for the extra paperwork?" Bradstreet chuckled.

"It would have been worth it to say good-bye and proper to Mr. Brewer." Thomas spat a bad taste out of his mouth (memories were like that). They stopped talking as Lestrade managed to wrestle the body to a prone position on the deck. He took a deep breath in the open air and went back into the cabin for something to cover the corpse.

"He usually this active?"

"Usually."

"Blimey."

"Don't mention it to him, hey?"

"Why?"

"Gregson told him once he kept moving to keep from thinking. They've been at war ever since."

"Lovely." The waterman peered at the corpse. With the head moved, the men had a clear view of the back of the skull. It was soaked with dried arterial blood tracking from the ear canals. "…Not the first time I've seen someone like that." Thomas' face was a picture upon the dead man. Bradstreet thought that he must have wanted the pleasure of finding the man still alive, all the better to arrest him or rough him up. "Had a cousin…found him caught up inside his own closet." He borrowed a lighted tip off Bradstreet and found his own tobacco again. "Almost upside down, I tell you."

They shut up—barring the occasional bark of "here, move along now!" and "got anything to contribute?" to the slow-growing crowd of curious onlookers. Either sentence was a guarantee for crowd dispersal.

"Some of these people might've actually seen something interesting." Bradstreet noted.

"More than likely, they did." Thomas agreed. Behind them a THUMP emerged as a faulty dowel proved itself (Lestrade trying to open a linen chest).

"Why aren't we questioning them?" Bradstreet puzzled.

Thomas grinned. "There's a better way of getting information off the canal-people than questioning them in public." He grinned even harder at the baffled expression on the other man's face. "You just watch. We're in for some amusement tonight."

"Don't say that word in front of a policeman." Bradstreet said darkly. "If we took but a fraction of 'amusement' out of the human race we'd sleep better."

"Too true." Thomas shrugged. He was tired as well. The entire day was getting to all of them.

Bradstreet pulled his fag away from his mouth and took a deep breath through his nose. Something sweet tickled his nostrils, a pale odour of something like formaldehyde..? He frowned, trying to place the scent. It was sickly-sweet with something like alcohol that lingered in the back of his throat, like a heavy perfume.

He was opening his mouth to ask if anyone else could catch the scent, but just then Lestrade nipped out, his dark hair almost as wild as his eyes. "Bloody hell!" He exploded. "Bloody damned woodscolt!"

As it was said before, policemen tried not to cultivate a reputation for being superstitious. Yet there was something drastic and alarming about Lestrade cursing the deceased—the so-recently deceased, he was probably still around to hear his remains getting the scold.

"What the Devil's wrong with you?" Bradstreet stared while Thomas tried not to swallow his cigarette. "No cursing the deceased, man!" His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. _"You know better!"_

"Not him." Lestrade shook his head, still breathing hard. He wiped sweat off his face with a handkerchief tucked up his sleeve. "Not him," he repeated. The sweat smeared coal-soot on his cheek. "Flash-notes. A handful of flash-notes pasted to the underside of the table."

Bradstreet groaned. "Bloody hell."

Thomas grimaced. "That's proof he was working for a family2. Most the canal-folk see nothing but coins in their entire lives. And they wouldn't care so much about money that could get wet and ruined."

"Good forgeries, actually." Lestrade admitted. "Looks like the Salt-Digger's work."

"The Salt-Digger doesn't make flash notes for petty little businessmen."

Lestrade wordlessly held up a battered envelope, the sticking-glue still on the paper. A corner of finely-wrought paper peeped out.

"It's the Salt-Digger." Thomas sighed. "So the deceased was not only deep, he was in deeper than we thought."

Thomas called for further assistance while Lestrade pulled out his tiny notebook and jotted down what he remembered of the events.

"What about that character we saw running off the boat?" He asked under his breath.

"Thomas thinks it was one of his runners…came to report and panicked when he saw the body." Bradstreet rubbed his gloves together for warmth and reached for his tea-can. "The runner might be why the flash was there in the first place, y'know? He could be stashing it for someone else in the family, not planning to spend it for himself."

"Passing on the counterfeit notes? That's possible."

"Unless there's a _stupid_ amount of money involved, people tend not to get murdered over counterfeiting. It's the note-makers and designers and the smugglers who have to worry about an early end." Bradstreet shuddered.

Lestrade looked hesitant. "I didn't see any signs of violence on him…that could be true."

"We won't know until we find and question 'em." Bradstreet stepped aside and Lestrade let him go first off the plank to the stone shelf.

"It could be—"

The explosion sent them the rest of the way to the earth. Things whistled past their ringing ears. Sharp things. Bradstreet felt the impact of something wooden-y needle his cheek. Behind him Lestrade grunted as if goosed like a child. Thomas yelled something.

Finally, there was silence.

Bradstreet was the first to break it. "Liquor, was it?" He tried to ask in a light tone and almost made it. "Running illegal liquor…with a name like The _Tipsy Parson_ I suppose we might have guessed it before now."

"God spare me from criminals who think they're smart." Thomas coughed, and pressed his hand against his breast-bone. His colour had turned quite grey against the alarming streak of red running down his temple. Bradstreet ripped a spare cloth out of his sleeve and sat the man down to staunch the wound, but even though the scratch seemed slight, the blood was still coming. "Remind me…remind me to make a better search of a place the next time I find a dead man…"

"What's wrong with your ribs?" Bradstreet asked as Lestrade summoned help with a shrill whistle and an even shriller yell. Smokey clouds from the burning hull drifted over the men, and fascinating though the sight was, the remaining civilians melted off the map.

"Just…gave me a bad turn there…hit me in an old spot…" Thomas panted. He frowned at a chunk of wooden screw lying on the trod. It had been carved of burl-wood and was dense as metal. It must have hurt like the devil.

"Lestrade, he won't stop bleeding! Can you get-"

"Never without." Lestrade said curtly. He pulled a paper packet out of his belt and opened it with quick fingers. Bradstreet pulled his hand away enough to give the other room, and Lestrade blew the contents upon the score. Bradstreet closed his hand back over the wound again, and guided Thomas to lie upon his back.

"Half a minute," Bradstreet promised the fallen man.

Thomas sighed and let his eyes shut, trying to relax his body to help the pepper-powder do its work.

Lestrade rubbed at his face, and stopped, surprised at the red smearing all over his once-white gloves. "Oh, no. I just paid the washerwoman."

"Sit you down." Bradstreet commanded. "If you're worried about the wash, you've got a love-tap on the skull for sure."

"Not worried 'bout th' wash," Lestrade protested, but his words were slow on his lips and Bradstreet knew delayed shock when he saw it. "Sh'hates blood. Charges double."

"London's full of blood. She must be terribly bitter."

"Eh?"

"_Sit you down_." Bradstreet reached up and closed his large hand around the broad black leather and brass belt about Lestrade's waist. Lestrade slumped to the fitted stones. "Good thing you had your coat back on," he added to his increasingly-dazed companion. "And," he took in the sight of a bright scratch on the custodian helmet, "your crown too. Might've been nasty."

"Nastier than telling the Office we were nearly blown off a boat running spirits and flash?" Lestrade put his head down against his knees. On the earth, Thomas grunted. It might have been his version of a laugh. Bradstreet studied the older man in concern. Help couldn't come soon enough.

**"Bradstreet!"**

Bradstreet turned just in time to see Lestrade and Cooper-when did Cooper get here?-one standing, one sitting and twisting up-both turning as a knot of men with makeshift clubs descended. _Not canal-folk_, Bradstreet had time to observe. _Too rough, too poor. Too dirty._ Lestrade was just close enough to take the first strike; his arm went up and a jolt of heavy wood shook the smaller man like a doll, sending him crashing to his knees. Cooper bellowed in a mix of pain and outrage and fell into open space.

Acting on his training, Bradstreet looped his Parker Truncheon into his wrist and swung out as he loped up in his heavy uniform. The first man, still bowed down from striking at Cooper, man looked up, eyes wild and white in his soot-darkened face and comprehension came too late. The heavy wood came down on the side of his head and he howled his outrage. Cooper's arm came down, clubbing the thug on his way down and neutralising the threat.

That left two more, and Lestrade was standing over the dozy Thomas, but it is almost impossible to defend someone you're standing over when your only martial skill is the truncheon and French boxing.

Bradstreet spared his left hand for winding his cheap whistle and his right for the truncheon. Cooper ducked into his line of view and, disappointingly, the men on their feet committed to the better part of valor and fled. Lestrade yelled at them to stop, but they didn't stop.

"Of all the-" Lestrade sputtered, too angry to think of the right words-exactly how Bradstreet was feeling-and sank to his knees on the pavement. His truncheon dangled from its loop upon his wrist and his shoulders slumped downwards. It was then Bradstreet saw the dark stain spreading out from the right of the man's shoulderblade.

And then, before he could take a deep breath, men were coming. Inspector Davids' white face stood against his whiter collar and fawn bowler. Bradstreet felt almost flattered, but told himself it was only a workman's concern for his men.

...

The hour was far too late for the day that had borne it.

Lestrade ate supper at a cheap pub off the corner of Paddington because he'd missed luncheon—as usual. His appetite suppressed against the demands of work, he told Mr. Keep to bring out whatever he had left in the kitchen. That turned out to be a dish of boiled cauliflower seasoned with Hindoo curry against the side of some sort of stuffed sausage that bled bright red oil when he pricked it with his fork. Patrons bustled back and forth around his corner-table, chattering with all the energy and vocal skills of squirrels. Several women of the evening moved among them, plying their trade. Out of respect for their "professions" his sort and their sort tried to ignore each other's presence as much as possible. Sometimes it was hard; the latter's profession required one to be as loud and obnoxious as possible (or so it seemed).

Lestrade managed to ignore the girls successfully tonight; eating one-handed could do that to one's concentration. He made a game of examining the sausage for ingredients. It was stuffed with sweet potato or vegetable marrow, and large amounts of rice. Peppers had coloured the oil, but not enough to bite the tongue. Slowly, the spices warmed his blood and he took a full tankard of black cider at the afters with a final sigh of relief. One meal a day was all he could afford. It was bread and tea for the other two meals, assuming there was time.

Mr. Davids was pretty clear on what he _should_ be doing. Lestrade mulled over the oddness of it from the beginning of his meal to the end. Why did the man want to remind him of something they both knew by heart? He moved his elbow aside so the girl could take up the plate—she knew better than to ask him if he "wanted anything more, dearie."

"You look a little better, Lestrade."

Lestrade tried not to choke on his cider. It was a near thing. He wiped at his mouth with his weak arm and muttered against his humiliation. The Borderman never blinked, but settled his bulk across the table.

"Thank you." Lestrade said at last. "What are you doing, still on duty?"

"I'm not on duty. I'm just waiting for a cheap room to open up in the upstairs."

"A cheap room? Here?" Lestrade was glad his cider was out of his mouth. "Are you daft? It would be cheaper if you just paid one of the ladies here and told them not to come back 'till dawn."

Bradstreet was bright red in the space between his hairline and his collar. "I know, but my rooms are in straits right now. I can't go back to them for another day."

"Straits?" Lestrade repeated, confused. "How do you mean?"

Bradstreet was still red-or perhaps it was the racy song the ladies were singing in the back. He looked down. "Fixing the walls." He grunted. "Too much dust."

Lestrade had to concede that was possible-and in London, plausible. "Come over to mine, then. I've got a decent space. Not much but it's clean."

Bradstreet looked as though he would be happier with chewing flint with a mouthful of iron teeth, but he finally nodded. "If you're offering rooms, I'll offer supper." He slipped money to the serving-girl and glared Lestrade's embryonic protest into silence.

"Fair enough," Lestrade decided it was a good idea to go along for the sake of the man's pride. "There's a good rack to put up your uniform if you need to dry it out."

"That's good." Bradstreet grunted, and they both left it at that. Bradstreet had eaten at a sausage-stall, so when Lestrade pushed his plate away the two rose and made their way to the streets. Lestrade's arm remained stiff, partially bound as it was beneath its coat. The field crow had accepted Lestrade's furious refusal to be touched, but warned him that he'd best be working on the morrow or he would be on report.

Lestrade had accepted the terms.

They silently walked to Lestrade's cheap room, and just as silently, both men put up with Bradstreet pulling the last of the splinters out of his comrade. They shared the brandy-bottle between them, each thinking of what would happen in the morning, but for now, they could rest.

Even with the low fire, the night would be bitterly cold. The men dressed warmly as they could, and buried under the covers. Their work-coats piled on top, adding to the warmth.

"Have to wonder what tomorrow will bring." Bradstreet said at last in the silence.

"Two yealms of nonsense, I'll vow." Lestrade predicted wearily.

Bradstreet had to chuckle, imagining himself strolling down the streets with two long loads of goods labeled "NONSENSE" under his arms. He had a feeling the fellow was right.

_..._


End file.
